"Can you make this in (insert fabric choice here)?"
"Do you take special orders?"
"Do you know where the bathrooms are?"
But recently, I was asked something that really made me think:"Have you been sewing all your life?"
Well...yes. And...no. I can very distinctly recall being about 5 or 6 and Mom teaching me to sew by letting me make a little pillow. It was probably not very good, but it was very, VERY fun. It was flowered...I think...and she helped me to put a little of that inexpensive "lace" ruffle trim around the edge. A year or two later, Santa Claus...in one of his greatest visits to our house EVER (more on that another time)...brought me a little sewing box. I'm sure Mom hoped I'd enjoy sewing my whole life. After all, she certainly did. She sewed almost all of my clothes until I rebelled (probably somewhere in late elementary school). She sewed Barbie outfits. She sewed (and re-sewed) and stuffed (and re-stuffed) worn and much loved stuffed animals. She sewed curtains for my very first bedroom makeover. She made drill team uniforms in both junior high school and high school, and coordinated a whole group of like-minded Moms to help her. She sewed practice flags for the band's flag corps. She sewed costumes for me for summer community theatre musicals. She was truly a seamstress, so of course, I had it in my genes. Or, not.
Because somewhere around junior high school time, I had to take Home Ec. and had to sew a skirt. The teacher knew my Mom and knew I'd been sewing "my whole life."Except I hadn't. My MOM had been sewing "my whole life." I, however, had been playing four-square, and riding bikes, and chewing gum, and listening to Shaun Cassidy records, and reading Tiger Beat magazine, and talking on the phone. I had probably not opened that sewing box since about Christmas night many years before.
And, boy howdy, did that skirt suffer. After having taken out and re-put-in the zipper for the seventh time, the teacher finally exclaimed, "Mary Katherine, how is it that you can't do this? Your mother is such a good seamstress!" I guess she felt sorry for me and passed my skirt on the seventh or eighth try, but she clearly had no idea how this skill skipped a generation.
I watched my Mom painstakingly cut patterns...and I learned a little. I watched her match stripes and plaids...and I learned a little. I watched her iron after every sewing step...and I learned a little. But, I didn't write everything down. I didn't ask her enough questions. I didn't listen enough about pinning curves. (I mean, I really, REALLY didn't listen well enough about pinning curves.)
Mom bought me a little student sewing machine to take with me to college...an unwanted piece of baggage that just took up valuable shoe space on the floor of that tiny dorm closet. She also bought me the Vogue Sewing Book to drag along with my enormous text books. What a waste...
...until I needed a shirt for a dance...until my roommate needed some shorts hemmed...until it was time for Christmas formal and a bunch of us wanted to make stockings for our dates...until I wanted a cute new blouse for a date. She knew. And later...when I needed a last-minute formal dress cut out (thank GOODNESS I watched her cut patterns...just enough)...and when I wanted drapes for my first apartment...and throw pillows...and Christmas stockings for my first Christmas in that apartment...and gifts for friends...and a hobby-ish business to enjoy in my 50's.
She knew.
So, "Yes ma'am. I have been sewing my whole life.!"
(I just didn't know it.)
