My love of sewing began when I was very young. My first inspiration was a beautiful quilt my Grandma had draped on the back of her couch. She’d sewn it square-by-square over several years, and finally completed it when she retired. I’ve always been a crafty girl, so one year for my birthday Grandma took me to the hobby store.
After wandering the aisles, I found a Dog Face sewing kit, complete with furry ears, sad eyes and a variety of plastic tongues/noses. It came with a giant plastic needle, yarn and circular sheeting that had holes in it designed to allow you to sew the facial features onto the circular background. I had hours of fun creating unusual pet expressions with this kit. A month or so later, Grandma and I went back to the hobby store.
This time I picked out a quilt set that was essentially giant felt rectangles that required you to cut the edges into strips and then tie together. This took some time to complete, but when I did, I proudly displayed it on the back of our couch, just like Grandma.
Soon thereafter, Grandma asked me if I wanted to help her make a quilt. She described the time-consuming process of creating the piece one square at a time and then sewing them all together. I was thrilled! We went to the neighborhood fabric store and I picked out all kinds of pretty floral remnants to begin the process.
When we got home I got the scissors and prepared to cut the edges into strips. “Ohh no, we’re sewing this,” she said. Then my Grandpa carried a big white plastic case into the room. “What’s that?” I asked. “A sewing machine,” he answered. Now, I had never seen a sewing machine so when Grandma took the cover off I didn’t know what to expect.
She opened a side compartment and took out a spool of yellow thread and put it on a little post on the top of the machine. Then she took the loose end of the thread and weaved it through a needle at the bottom of the machine. As I watched in anticipation, she plugged it in. “OK, now give me two pieces of your fabric.” I did.
She put the two pieces next to each other with the edges overlapping, snapped a little lever down to keep them in place and said, “Now watch this.” There was a foot pedal on the floor and when she pushed it the needle went up and down. She then slowly advanced the fabric squares as the yellow thread made a clean straight line.
She released the fabric, cut the string and handed the sewn together pieces to me. “This was just a practice run to show you how it’s done.” I had never seen this process before and thought it was the coolest thing ever! Every weekend for the next several months Grandma and I worked on the quilt.
We went back to the fabric store and bought some solid color material remnants to piece in with the floral prints, and a big piece of pink flannel to use as the backing. We worked long and hard on this, and that’s where my love of sewing progressed from giant plastic needles and dog faces to the art of quilting using a sewing machine.
The next year my Grandma gave me her sewing machine for my birthday. She taught me how to thread it and gave me her case of bobbins and more thread and buttons than I could ever dream of using. My mom took me to the fabric store and we bought a variety of different materials and embellishments. I then set up shop on the dining room table.
My first projects were mostly pillowcases. Grandma had taught me about turning things inside-out so the seams would be hidden, and since it was a pillowcase there would be an open end so I wouldn’t have to hand-sew anything. I remember some fabric we bought had a cloud/raindrop pattern on it. One of the embellishments I bought was a red umbrella.
This had to be hand sewn, and it was tough! Grandma showed me how to thread the needle, knot the end and how to make sure my stitches were even and looked pretty. When it was done, I was super proud of this item. I used it for years, but it finally became so thread-barren that we had to retire it. I’ve made dozens of pillowcases since then, but it was my first and will always be my favorite.
As I got older I moved on to clothing. I could sew hems on my sewing machine and hand-sew missing buttons. Then one year I wanted to be the StayPuft Marshmallow Man (from Ghostbusters) for Halloween, but couldn’t find a ready-made costume. No worries; my Grandma and I created one out of an old white sheet (and lots of padding underneath J).
Over the years I’ve done a lot of community theatre, and in this arena, my sewing skills are invaluable. Costuming for theatre is usually taking ready-made items and re-purposing them to match the character requirements.
Adding panels, petticoats, hemming/lengthening can be a very difficult task, especially if your cast list is long, and only two people know how to use the sewing machine. It takes a team to complete the process, and the show directors are always thankful to have an actor who can double as a customer.
Over the years, I’ve created some of my own pieces and made simple repairs on my family member’s clothing. This saves money since you don’t have to buy a new dress if strap breaks, and refurbishing items can make a unique fashion statement without having to spend a lot of money at the mall. I love my sewing machine and will continue to use it always. Hopefully, I’ll have the opportunity to teach my own child to sew someday.
