When I was a little girl, I used to love watching my mother sew. I wrote a story about one particular sewing project.
(From the book, “Niskey Lake”, by Joan Elise; joaneanna@yahoo.com)
THE SEWING MACHINE
My mother started sewing when she was seven years old. She tells the story of how she got a little sewing kit as a gift. The kit contained tiny little pieces of cloth, cut to specification, for a little doll. After she had sewn up all the doll clothes in the kit, she proceeded to purchase her own material and a seamstress was born.
My mind flashes back to my mother sitting in front of a sewing machine. She, like I have described myself making playhouses from pine straw, sat steadfastly in front of that machine sewing to her hearts content. She might as well have been painting the Sistine Chapel, for all the passion she put into her work. She was an artist at her canvas, or so it seemed to me. It was like magic. She would lay out a piece of material on the table, lay thin pieces of paper with dark lines and arrows on top of the material, pin the paper down securely, and cut around the edges of each carefully laid out piece. She would lift the cut outs from the table, in a sort of ritualistic resurrection from the dead, and place the lifeless forms on the altar of the “Singer”. Removing the pins and the attached pattern pieces, she would carefully align each arrow and line. And then…the calling forth from the dead would take place. “Dress, come forth! Blouse, come forth! Skirt, come forth!” Right before my very eyes I saw life breathed into the inanimate.
I witnessed the creator, fashioning life from the dust, as it were. I reverenced this ability and watched in fascination with the cultivation of every garment.
My delight was further enhanced when I happened to be the recipient of such a garment. There is nothing like watching a piece of clothing come into being. It reminds me of the story of “Pinocchio”, the wooden marionette, creation of Geppeto, who miraculously came to life one night. Geppeto longed for a son and was granted his wish. One day he was a lifeless puppet, the next day he was a real live boy. That was the fairy tale sense that permeated the atmosphere surrounding the assembly of a piece of clothing, especially when it was for me.
I remember one dress in particular. Why I remember this dress, I will never know, but I remember it vividly. It was a sleeveless dress made of a thin white material. The material was graced with a pattern of short black lines placed sided by side and one on top of the other in a box-like arrangement. Inside the virtual box was a tiny rectangle of red, just enough color to command attention. I can see myself walking down that dirt road in that white, black and red dress. Mother made that dress, and many, many others.
One of the more poignant stories of my mother’s resourcefulness was the signature feed sack shirts and pajamas. The feed sacks that chicken feed used to come in, unlike the scratchy old burlap that we’ve come to know, was packed in cotton print sacks, print that could be quite eye catching. Upon being bereft of its grainy contents, my mother would snatch it from inevitable extinction, and proceed to ordain it with a holy calling. Not to miss any opportunity to take advantage of an unbetrothed piece of material, my mom would rescue this mercantile damsel in distress, baptize her in the wringer washer, and would proclaim her wed, in an arranged marriage of sorts, to a dashing suitor: a shirt, pajamas, or whatever revelation had dictated. Thus was the calling of this didactic woman of the cloth.
(From the book, “Niskey Lake”, by Joan Elise; joaneanna@yahoo.com)
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