A History of Sewing: Mine, Anyway

My first real introduction to sewing happened one summer while I was in high school. My friend and I took sewing lessons from her mom, a very talented seamstress. I'm sure I was fulfilling some goal for my Young Womanhood Award. I made a pair of shorts. And that was it. I wasn't hooked. Several years later I took a Beginning Sewing class at BYU. I must have felt sewing was a good skill to have, so I gave it another shot. I made a skirt and a blouse that I wore maybe twice. The final project for the class was to compare the cost of buying an outfit vs. making a similar one. When I realized I could buy clothes cheaper than I could make them, my interest in sewing faded completely.

Over the years I've never really regretted not developing that talent, but I have wished I had a sewing machine, just so I could mend things. I'll admit to saving almost all my mending for my mom and mother-in-law. Then earlier this year I received a really nice hand-me-down sewing machine in a cabinet from a lady in our ward in Texas. But I was intimidated by it. Still I saved my mending until my mother-in-law came to visit. She figured out how to use my new machine first and caught me up on all my mending--again.

So, inspired by my friend Charlotte and her lists of goals, I set a goal to figure out how to use my fancy new sewing machine myself before the end of this year. Last Wednesday became the day. Adam earned his Cub Scout Wolf badge and three arrow points at a Pack Meeting sometime last spring. I stuck the badges in a "safe place"--the outside pocket of the diaper bag. And there they stayed through the summer and through our move. Then last month Adam started Cub Scouts in our new ward here in Utah. Not only did he need his Wolf badge sewed on his uniform, but he also needed a new council patch and a new pack number. So I went to the diaper bag to find the patches. All three tiny little arrow points were still there, but the Wolf badge was gone. So I put the arrow points in a safer place and procrastinated. Sewing on patches by hand is a pain and very time-consuming, so I was glad to put off that particular project. But then pack meeting was coming up this month, and I found out the Cub Scout leaders were planning to award Adam his three arrow points again, because he told them he hadn't received them yet. Guilt trip. My fault. No more procrastinating. Time to sew on the patches. So on the day of pack meeting I made the trip to the Scout Shop, bought the requisite patches, and--ran out of time to sew them on. When I finally sat down to sew them on last Wednesday before the next den meeting, I decided that even though it would probably take me just as much time to learn how to use my sewing machine as it would take to sew the patches on by hand, I would be better off in the long run if I would just bite the bullet and get out the instruction manual. It took all afternoon, but I got all the patches sewed on in the proper spots and they look good, if I do say so myself. The pocket is not sewed shut, and the sleeve is not sewed together. . . anymore. It was an absorbing project, but that was a good thing on that particular day when I was letting negative thoughts get the better of me anyway. When I was done, my mood was better and I felt such a sense of accomplishment. I even mended a hole in Jeff's sweatshirt, and tried to patch some of Ryan's jeans. (The patching didn't go so well though, so I made a trip to Sears the next day to buy double-kneed Toughskins jeans, worth every penny of the full price I paid. Although I have yet, to test it, I've heard Sears will replace them for free if your kid goes through the knee before they grow out of them.) I doubt I'll ever claim the title of seamstress, but if I can mend and sew on Scout patches for my four boys for the next 20 years, I think my sewing skills will be just fine.