There’s an old saying “a stitch in time, saves nine”. I like that. I like to sew. I’m in the midst of sewing for my 5 month old granddaughter, Naomi.
“My granddaughter” is still a new concept for me. Being the only girl in a family of 6 children and then having two sons and five grandsons, I have few experiences with little girls. In fact, except for baby shower gifts, I’ve never sewn for a little girl, other than myself.
I have a feeling that I’ll be sewing more for this little girl than I have for my grandsons….and I hope God gives me lots of years to do that. I made pajamas and a few other clothes for the boys when they were little, but as they got older that wasn’t in their plan. Sam and I have sewn some silly little outfits for him and Austin has helped me sew some things, and I’ve made some bedding for the grandsons, but that’s about all the sewing I’ve done with or for my grandsons.
Since I started making Naomi’s crib bedding a few days ago, I’ve had time to think about sewing and all my memories of the stitches I’ve made. While sewing, I can think a lot. I realize that I enjoy doing things that allow me to think and work at the same time. I mean that two ways. I like using my brain…which is required in sewing…and I’ll explain more about that later. And I also like to have the quiet time while I’m working alone, with my hands. Sewing is good for me.
I had no grandmother to teach me to sew and my mother couldn’t even sew on a button, so I had no experience with sewing until I was 9 years old. The 4-H Club introduced me to the art, and science, of sewing and from the first moment I sat at a sewing machine and realized what I could do….I loved it! The summer after I had turned 9 in January, I took a sewing workshop at Wharton County Jr. College and made my very first thing. I don’t recall what it was…..maybe a simple gathered skirt. I just remember that I was so proud of it.
In high school I got a double dose of sewing lessons as I took home economics classes each year, along with my continued time in the 4-H Club. I started out making very simple articles of clothing and moved on to make tailored, lined suits with bound buttonholes. I made lots of my own clothes and loved the creativity of it. I would dream up an outfit or see something in a magazine that I thought was really cool and I would go look for a pattern and fabric and make it for myself. Even when I didn’t have time to sew, or couldn’t find the right pattern, I would take the fabric and the idea to a seamstress in Wharton, and she would make it for me. I can remember to this day, 50 years later, some of those cute skirts and tops and dresses that I created. Sometimes people say ugly things about “homemade” clothes. I made sure that my “homemade” clothes were made better than ‘store bought”. In fact, I would compare my “homemade” clothes to the “store bought” ones and realize how much better made mine were….and so much cheaper! I’ve saved lots of money by making my clothes and being able to alter the ones that I did buy.
As I mentioned, my mom couldn’t sew on a button or hem her own skirts, so I did a lot of that for her. I even made dresses for her.
In 1961, during my junior year in high school, I won the Wharton County Dress Revue and went on to win the district (19 counties) competition at the University of Houston and that qualified me to be in the state competition at the State Fair of Texas in Dallas. There I modeled my outfit on a stage in front of hundreds of people. For this little country girl, that was a pretty big deal! I still remember that outfit. It was a 2-piece suit made of dark charcoal 100% fine wool that was very soft and light weight. The straight, just below the knee, skirt had a black lining. The jacket was lined with white and charcoal print Italian silk. My accessories included a black wool beret (hat), black fabric gloves, and black calf heels and hand bag. That’s the way we dressed up in those days…hat, gloves…the whole deal!
Somewhere in my later years I stopped making my own clothes and I also stopped “dressing up” like I did when I was younger. I think some of it is laziness and some of it is because of our current culture. People just don’t seem to “dress up” like they used to. In some ways I like that, but in other ways I kind of miss it.
In college I took more sewing classes, as a home economics major, and improved my sewing skills even more. In one sewing class I remember making a good looking
lined wool suit with bound buttonholes and fur trimmed collar and sleeves. I wish I had saved those suits. They were beautiful works of art….probably my best sewing efforts. Anyway, I continued to sew. I designed and made my wedding dress and lots and lots of other clothes for myself.
I continued to make my clothes and sew for other people after I got married. In fact, for many years I was a seamstress, on the side….one of those many jobs I’ve had. I took several different classes from a very professional seamstress and learned to make my own
patterns, and from those patterns I made some really awesome pants and blouses. That was really when the geometry and math came in. My teacher was from Austria and she only knew the metric system. I really had to use my brain for those classes and learned so very much.
When Art was in the Army we lived in Virginia and we were poor, I made his dress slacks, leisure suits and even a regular tailored suit. Now that was a real accomplishment. One of the most difficult things about making a man’s suit was to find the fabric. Most fabric stores don’t have fabric suitable for making a man’s suit. I felt like I had really reached the top of my sewing career when I finished that project, but I knew I would never do it again. I like challenges, but that was a bit much!
Sewing requires lots of things…..patience, math, measuring, knowledge of fabrics, patience, flexibility, measuring, creativity, more measuring and more patience. I see some young ladies sewing now who don’t have the basic knowledge that I was fortunate to get in the 4-H Club and my home economics classes. They don’t seem to have a clue about the selvages, the bias or the grain, pressing each seam after it is sewn, using a pressing cloth, a sleeve board and pressing ham, hand stitched hems that don’t show, precise measurements, straight stitches or buttons sewn on properly. All those things really do make a difference in the finished product. I’m afraid that those basic things are a dying art, because it’s not popular anymore for girls to be in 4-H and take home economics in high school or college. That makes me sad. It also makes me glad that I grew up in the country when and where I did. I got some really good training. I could write a book about the training I received from the 4-H Club. The 4-H Club motto “to make the best better” was instilled in me. Maybe my next blog will be about that.
Proverbs 31 speaks to us about a ‘virtuous woman”. The verses that mention how she seeks wool and flax and works willingly with her hands and how she lays her hands to the spindle; and makes herself coverings of tapestry; and she makes fine linens and sells them; and she perceives that her merchandise is good..…….all those things tell me that sewing is a good thing for a woman to do. Proverbs 31:31 says “Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own words praise her in the gates.”
I hope Naomi will want to learn to sew and I hope and pray that I’ll still be around to teach her. I so want to share with my granddaughter what I know about sewing and maybe I can share with her some of my wisdom and with God’s guidance, she will strive to become a virtuous woman.
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2 comments:
What a great post. I LOVE your words and I am certain that Naomi will learn so much from you. I did and I am blessed because of it. XO
My mother-in-law wrote this:
I have always loved sewing, too, and I would give anything to have had the chances to learn as much as you did about it. I had 2 years of home economics and Mama taught me some but she was self taught--even to having to make her own patterns for the first 35 years of her life. She was the oldest girl in a family of 12 and she was sort of forced to learn so it's a good thing that she loved it. She made some very nice looking garments after she got her family raised and had a little more money to buy good materials with. When she was around 40 years old, she joined the Home Demonstration Club and did get some good training there. That happened after I left home.
As I said, I have always loved to sew. In fact, Mama told me that from the time I could crawl when she was sewing at the machine, if she had to get up for something and leave the machine for a short time, when she returned she would find me in her chair trying to sew and one time I ran the machine needle through my finger! I was so young that I don't even remember it.
Mama made many quilts and when I was in first grade I had the Chicken Pox which required me to stay in bed (in those days) for about a week or more so I told Mama I wanted to make a quilt. The pieces for each block were cut out by hand and sewed by hand. She cut blocks for me, using a simple pattern, and I got myself busy making my quilt. I worked at it deligently as long as I was in bed but as soon as I could get up and move I lost interest in the quilt. I had about a dozen blocks so sometime after I married Mama finished sewing the quilt and quilted it, then gave it to me.
After I had the home economics training I always made my own clothes until at age 49 I went to work and didn't sew much after that. Now my vision causes my sewing to be very limited except for alterations. Almost every garment I buy has to be altered, especially the length. Even the petites are almost always too long for "Shorty".
I, like you, had no daughters. I made most of the baby clothes that my four little boys wore. When the first three came along little boys still wore dresses! When #4 arrived five years later, they were beginning to wear boy clothes mostly so I made some of those, too. When my granddaughters began to arrive I didn't sew for them because Jamie could sew much better than I. She too, as you will remember, was a home ec major. Regan's mom sews well, also, but I don't think she ever made many clothes for Regan and they never lived near by but one time when I was with her for a week I made a dress for her---it wasn't any thing special but she was so very proud of it. I made it thinking that she might wear it to school a few times but the following Sunday she wore it to church! I don't thing Mary sews at all but Meghann always lived too far away. When I sewed I needed to try the garment on several times to see how the fit was coming along!
In recent years, until about a year ago, I used scraps left over from all of my years of adult sewing to make patchwork quilts and lap robes and gave them to charity. I did this on the machine using the zig-zag stitch. I really enjoyed that and still have boxes of scraps stored away. Some of them are so old it's a wonder they aren't decayed! Maybe I will start another lap robe this afternoon!
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