I sew. Not much anymore because of time constraints, but I can tackle reasonably difficult patterns and given time can make nearly anything I want to with fabric. I hate sewing clothes because everything I make turns out looking like I should be on Little House on the Prairie. And nothing really fits “right”. Yet, everytime I go to the fabric store I have to flip through the pattern books to see if there is anything I should try. Oh my goodness, have you seen the baby patterns? To die for. But there are two limitations to that for me, my time, and fabric is fricking expensive. I am a really good quilter, just wish I loved doing it more. I like quilting and I like the result, but it probably falls as #3 on my list of crafts I like to do in my spare time, should I ever be blessed with spare time. First would be cross stitching, as I mentioned the other day. Second would be pottery, but since I don’t have a wheel, or a kiln… So quilting is up there on the list.
I went to the fabric store yesterday to pick out fabric for the new baby’s quilt. I usually frequent Hancock fabrics out of preference. The larger chain store I find to be a thorough mess and I can never find anything, and it is always a madhouse. I know at Hancock I can walk in, browse by myself, see things organized and get help when needed. One thing I have noticed however, with this store, is the age of the staff and customers. I usually feel as though I am the youngest be a number of decades.
While I browsed fabric one of the sales associates came over to chat. She asked how long I had been sewing (a common question I get there mostly because of the age of the sales staff I think. I think I am an anomaly there.) I told her that I have sewed since I can remember.
No joke. When I was a kid, my mom made all of my sisters and my clothes. I used the scraps to make doll clothes and can remember at a very young age sitting at my mom’s sewing machine using it. Hot summer afternoons were often spent in the fabric store where my mom would sit at the big tables of fall pattern books and select pattern after pattern for my sister and I. Then she would buy the fabric, sometimes even with our input. The remainder of the summer was spent sewing clothes for us. She used to sew these tags in the backs of our clothes that said, “Made especially for you by *her name*”, which as I got older used to embarrass the crap out of me, despite the fact they were on the INSIDE of my clothes.
I think back to how much time my mom put into this, and how, as I got older, unappreciative and even embarrassed by this I was. My mom made us gorgeous clothes. As time went on, eventually she quit sewing so much for us. And I was thankful when we could go to the new indoor mall and buy cool clothes instead.
I loved Home Ec in junior high – do they still even teach Home Ec? It was girls only and we learned sewing and cooking. In both subjects I was always a number of steps ahead of my peers. I usually surprised my teachers with my sewing skills. I did sew a little through high school, usually with Vargas Girl in modifying our dresses for dances like Boosters so that they were a little unique. In college I went with a hippy guy who thought it was cool to make your own clothes and so I attempted some that made me viable as an extra on Little House on the Prairie.
When I moved to Reno from Colorado one day it dawned on me. I no longer had a sewing machine. I had always used my moms! How could I survive without a sewing machine? Within about 6 months I bought myself a lower end Viking that has served me well for the last 10 years. When the day came that I had a nicer machine than my mom, she realized that her machine she had since I was baby might just be bordering on obsolete and she went and bought a top of the line Viking with all the bells and whistles. (*jealous*)
I started quilting in grad school and used to make a few quilts a year. Just before Leif was born I made him a quilt (which he uses pretty much only as a pad to lay on, or puts Cookie Monster to sleep under it). That was the last quilt I made, despite AB’s suggestions that I finish the huge queen sized quilt that I have all cut out and placed neatly in a drawer. Unfortunately it isn’t from lack of motivation to finish it… I probably spent $80 on the fabric, it is the presence of a toddler in the house. The sewing machine would be an awfully cool toy. Fabric laying out on the ground to be cut? Yeah I remember how fun that was with my little sister. The hot iron on nearly all the time to press the seams? Not a hobby conducive to raising a toddler!
My mom has just started quilting and often seeks advice. I smile as I see her in that obsessive quilting phase that I entered ten years ago. Where I bought a quarter of a yard of any unique fabric I liked, where I had more patterns then time and where my iron was nearly always on. Her enthusiasm motivates me again. Which is good since I need to make this quilt for baby number two! Thanks to her, at least in the quilt realm, the second child will not get the shaft!
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