13 March 1999

Stitchery

The fabric slides smoothly across the black and gold painted surface of the sewing machine. The pads of my fingers feed it into the gaping maw of the presser-foot where it is pricked by the swift jabs of the glinting silver needle.

The machine is old, dating back to at least 1920 and rattles mightily with every tap on the pedal. But it still runs a straight seam and the pieces that I have drawn and cut out are slowly but surely turning into a garment as if by magic.

My hands are wrapped clumsily around the needle poking it laboriously into the doubled layers of lavendar calico. Pausing in her work at the machine, my mother looks over to check my progress, and with a patient smile, corrects the position of my hands smoothing out the buckling sitches. She is making a costume for my brother, I am making dress for my doll. Later in that same year, my grandmother visits from America and she helps me design a nightgown for another doll. She stitches up the large seams with the machine and shows me how to turn the hems.

Between my mother and my grandmother, it's no surprise that I learned to sew at a young age. I think I was six or so when I first started learning by observation. I put my first doll's clothes together with varying degrees of success between the ages of seven and nine. By the time I was ten, I was making rag dolls to give away to friends.

In high school I made some of my own clothes and costumes for plays, Halloween etc. By the time I got to college, my mother was ready to hand over her old machine for my use. While a student member of the SCA I refined my skills by staying up for many nights just before an event to finish either my own or a batch of costumes for other members/friends in the group.

Now I make science fiction and period costumes for a little bit of extra pocket money.

My friend Carmen arrived around seven p.m. tonight with her mother's old sewing machine. As I cut out pieces, she stitched them together and we talked as the cloak slowly took shape beneath her hands. After an hour or so, I brought out my machine and set it up opposite. We chatted amiably as the wheels spun, the needles ran and the machines clanked.

The magic of pieces of fabric turning into whole garments and from there whole costumes filled the room, assuaging my irritation at the cats, who of course make themselves nuisances chewing on thread and yanking fabric off the table.

I think perhaps, that my grandmother, would be proud.