I Flunked Apron, So Why Do I Sew?

I am just about to go upstairs to “The Studio,” our combined painting and sewing room, to work on my third version of a classic tailored shirt. November 3, 2015 will mark the second anniversary of my return to the sewing machine since the disastrous mess of an apron I “made” in my eighth grade home economics class in 1963.

There was a brief return in 1992 when I was inspired to make curtains for a new lodging. I mentioned this to an adult violin student, as we appraised my naked windows facing the street. The following week she lugged a 1976 all-metal Singer sewing machine along the sidewalk, and thrust it into my arms. “I bought it, I never used it, it’s yours,” she announced. I enrolled in a beginners’ class at G Street Fabrics in Rockville, Maryland, where I was thrillingly able to make a tote bag and a blouse. (The bag I still use; the blouse I wore out.) I called my experience “Re-doing 8^th Grade Home Ec.” The important core of my success was learning to go slowly and carefully. In the class, I watched hurrying students put a heavy foot on the machine pedal, stitch madly out of control, and then rip out seams for hours. This was something I had done at age 12, not knowing The Secret of Slow and Careful.

So, I made some curtains, put the sewing machine away, and did not return to it until 2013.

  

What brought me back? Not curtains, and definitely not aprons. There were a number of reasons. First of all, there was the issue of fit. I am 5’3” and small-boned. I am also rather thin and somewhat awry in my proportions. I am thin because my diet is 90% vegetables.Then, there are two ancient pins in my left ankle, causing me to be a little lopsided. Also, playing the violin all my life has made my left neck-to-shoulder territory shorter and more congested with muscle than my right side. Ready to wear clothing just doesn’t fit properly. So, that was one reason I decided to sew.

More compelling attractions were the seductive twins of textiles and handwork. I have always loved fabrics, rugs, quilts, costumes, woolens, the Textile Museum in Washington D.C., the lace galleries in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Costume Institute at the Met in NYC, weavers in India, silks in Japan, cotton prints of the Kuna people of Panama, etc.  And handwork---which produces an amazing alpha-and-beta-wave combo---is Big Pharma to me. Sewing can set off those brain waves until time disappears, and I bliss out with concentration.  Years before, I crocheted and knitted, but stopped because I couldn’t stop. It was too calming, too pleasant, too addictive, too opposite-of-me. 

But I made the big decision to start sewing with the best reason of all: it’s a reward! A reward for what? For eating healthfully, exercising daily, taking my vitamins, seeing the doctor and dentist at proper intervals, growing all the vegetables we eat all year long, taking care, taking great care, every single day. One needs a Big Reward for all that, so I gave it to myself, and set up a sewing section in “The Studio.” 

As the second anniversary of my Sewing Reward approaches, today I celebrate  being able to concentrate on the lovely pima cotton lawn shirt, my 30^th garment, counting all of the muslins (practice garments) I painstakingly stitched and fitted. So, I am contemplating a reward for pursuing my reward: a new “Rolls Royce” up-to-date sewing machine to replace my trusty “Model T” Singer. I’ve almost earned it.

 

Here is the tote bag from 1992,  holding my swimming gear (with Sophie the Cat)

The sewing section! Observe (left to right) pieces of shirt #3, shirt #2 on the dress form, and the 1976  Singer