A Serendipitous Day

When I was fifteen, my mother gave me a sewing machine for my birthday.  I was thrilled, and embraced it immediately.  When Becca was fifteen, my mother gave her a sewing machine, and she did not embrace it at all.  There were probably several reasons for this.  Paramount was her lingering bitterness, left over from the Handwork class in her Irish grammar school.  “I hate it!” she said.  “The boys make fun things out of popsicle sticks and we have to sew these dumb little mats.”  She only brought home one somewhat finished object, an embroidered coaster, and I could tell that her heart had not been in it.

The second problem with the sewing machine was that we somehow immediately lost the instruction booklet, and could not get the tension set right. I made a book cover (on my own sewing machine) which Becca presented to Grandma as her first needlework accomplishment.  My mother always used those little sewn book covers so that my father would not see her latest trashy romance.  He had very strict ideas about what was proper reading material, and did not hesitate to let you know if he didn’t approve. The third problem was that eventually, we lost the whole sewing machine.  How can this be, you might well wonder.  I had kept it in my closet for years, and when I finally went to look for it, it was gone!  Then, recently, when cleaning and purging my basement, lo! There it was!  This will give you an idea of the mess my basement was in. (I also lost a huge food dehydrator which also eventually  turned up.) Becca was thrilled when I found her sewing machine, as she was now eager to try her hand at seamstressing.  She got a really nice how-to-sew book which gave projects, each demonstrating some new technique and building on those learned previously.  She has made quite a few of them – several bags from curtains that she got at the thrift store, and a pillow with self-made and applied piping!  I consider piping the acme of sewing skill!  She made me this cute little Kleenex container from left-over dog scraps.  It’s just what my constantly drippy nose needed. She also made me this lovely pink drink.  You can find the details here.