IF ONLY AUNT BEA COULD SEE ME NOW
You may not know this about me yet, dear reader, but I sew. Not the repairing of a torn hem, or the reaffixing of a dislocated button kind of sewing – I am prone to postponing those labors infinitely – nor do I possess the masterful expertise of a fine quilter, but I do sew, an impulse which seems to solely manifest itself in the creation of stuffed animals for the wife’s birthdays.
Meet Oli and Blum [Elephant and Stegosaurus, if you could not tell.]
And now, as the wife’s birthday draws near, I have begun work on this year's offering, a frog, which may or may not include my first foray into appliqué, but, at the moment, that is beside the current point.
As I said, I sew, or better yet, perhaps, I sew badly, or poorly, or whatever the appropriate adverb and/or adjective would be to describe my enjoyment of these moderately effective efforts at using needle and thread to bind bits of fabric to each other. I have never learned to use a sewing machine; no one has ever taught me proper stitching techniques; I am generally unsure whether I am using the proper needle, thread, or fabric to make whatever it is that I am making, but, nonetheless, I sew.
I am not quite sure why I sew; the only other memory I have of sewing comes from an eighth grade home economics class in which I believe I made a pillow of some sort that may or may not have hung together for a week or so. At least I did not have to spend another semester in woodworking with the stereotypically injury-prone shop instructor. And I think learning to sew, to bake a cake, and to produce macaroni and cheese from scratch may have also allowed me to opt out of yet another semester of humiliating attempts to draw anything that remotely resembled the thing it was meant to resemble. Somehow, though, this class also seems to have exempted me from actually learning to sew, which returns me once again to the fact that I sew.
My stitches are inconsistent; they range in scale and often take odd turns at the most inopportune moments. Occasionally the knots I inexpertly tie at the end of my bits of thread come undone causing a half-dozen or so stitches to come unraveled, which leads to a spate of grumbling while pulling out enough of my handiwork to refashion a new knot thus insuring at least a semblance of fixity. At least once a project I attach the wrong side of one thing to the backwards side of another requiring me to start all over from the beginning – which, I must admit dear reader, is probably for the best as it allows me to finally scrap all of the previous minor glitches that had quite invariably come before this final, fatal error.
But, despite all of my shortcomings, I sew – badly, poorly, or however it ought to be classified. I don’t expect to ever grow better at my craft, which I take as a blessing for I fear that if I ever became expert I would somehow no longer wish to continue, that perhaps my awkward color combinations and anatomically inaccurate designs would no longer befit the perfection of my nimble fingers. Thus this sewing remains a rare pleasure for me, intentionally made scarce to ward off the improbable possibility that some day, decades from now, I might, quite by accident I am sure, form an elegant string of stitches.
Meet Oli and Blum [Elephant and Stegosaurus, if you could not tell.]
And now, as the wife’s birthday draws near, I have begun work on this year's offering, a frog, which may or may not include my first foray into appliqué, but, at the moment, that is beside the current point.
As I said, I sew, or better yet, perhaps, I sew badly, or poorly, or whatever the appropriate adverb and/or adjective would be to describe my enjoyment of these moderately effective efforts at using needle and thread to bind bits of fabric to each other. I have never learned to use a sewing machine; no one has ever taught me proper stitching techniques; I am generally unsure whether I am using the proper needle, thread, or fabric to make whatever it is that I am making, but, nonetheless, I sew.
I am not quite sure why I sew; the only other memory I have of sewing comes from an eighth grade home economics class in which I believe I made a pillow of some sort that may or may not have hung together for a week or so. At least I did not have to spend another semester in woodworking with the stereotypically injury-prone shop instructor. And I think learning to sew, to bake a cake, and to produce macaroni and cheese from scratch may have also allowed me to opt out of yet another semester of humiliating attempts to draw anything that remotely resembled the thing it was meant to resemble. Somehow, though, this class also seems to have exempted me from actually learning to sew, which returns me once again to the fact that I sew.
My stitches are inconsistent; they range in scale and often take odd turns at the most inopportune moments. Occasionally the knots I inexpertly tie at the end of my bits of thread come undone causing a half-dozen or so stitches to come unraveled, which leads to a spate of grumbling while pulling out enough of my handiwork to refashion a new knot thus insuring at least a semblance of fixity. At least once a project I attach the wrong side of one thing to the backwards side of another requiring me to start all over from the beginning – which, I must admit dear reader, is probably for the best as it allows me to finally scrap all of the previous minor glitches that had quite invariably come before this final, fatal error.
But, despite all of my shortcomings, I sew – badly, poorly, or however it ought to be classified. I don’t expect to ever grow better at my craft, which I take as a blessing for I fear that if I ever became expert I would somehow no longer wish to continue, that perhaps my awkward color combinations and anatomically inaccurate designs would no longer befit the perfection of my nimble fingers. Thus this sewing remains a rare pleasure for me, intentionally made scarce to ward off the improbable possibility that some day, decades from now, I might, quite by accident I am sure, form an elegant string of stitches.
8 Comments:
You learned to sew at school, to get out of learning to do worse things, but you really didn't learn how to sew--not really. Now as an adult, you find you can sew! I was forced to learn to sew and I would have done anything to get out of it. And I screwed up all the sewing machines and might have caused the teacher to be a dipsomaniac. Then I was an adult and found I could sew, and actually sewed my own clothes for a bit. It passed over, thank God. Love the elephant!!!
I made my grandmother an apron in home ec in 1987. My mother, who inherited it, finally stopped wearing it three or four years ago (I think) after it finally went into holes.
To be fair, though, aprons aren't exactly hard to make.
i am impressed. i'm impressed by the fact that a) you sew b) you make cool looking animals, and c) you took 8th grade home economics.
jb
To set the record straight, the mother in comment two is still wearing the apron. It is missing some parts!
Anon#1: Isn't dipsomania the inherent danger of being a home ec teacher?
PSM: I think we would all like to see a picture of that apron [Anon#2 could you help out with that?].
J: I shall have to introduce you to the animals. I rather enjoyed home ec; actually I still rather enjoy home ec and, if I must say so myself, look rather stunning in an apron [just ask PSM].
I am struck into much wonderment and amazement. I really did think that the apron in question had fallen to pieces and been discarded (or, more likely, put in the rag drawer).
In any case, the aforementioned apron is a made from a fairly ghastly green and pink floral print. It has -- or perhaps had -- a large pocket in the front, presumably intended for the temporary storage of sundry cooking utensils. For reasons I cannot possibly explain, I originally attached pink lace to the straps and to the top of the pocket -- though that lace may have since fallen off (or been picked off when it grew loose).
PSM: I really do think we all need a photo of this item; It sounds adorable. Actually , will you make me one as a house warming present?
Mercifully, I know of no photographs showing the apron in question.
Ye know not what you do in asking for an apron of your own. Insofar as nearly 20 years have passed since my apron-making heyday, any apron I were to make you would immediately fall apart and slide straight off your body. In fact, given the current state of my sewing skills, such an apron would probably cause any garments it came into contact with to fall to pieces as well.
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