How I started to sew

Gentle Readers,

Thank you for the wonderful, hilarious and kind comments you made regarding my last two garments. You guys make blogging and sewing way more fun. The cape was truly a labor of love. I find it ironic it poured rain in Baltimore last night while I was at the office. And the cape was hanging on the sewing room door back home. Machts nichts.

Months ago BlackLiterature asked me how I started sewing. Recently Patricia all the way in the Philippines sent a nice email asking the same. I thought now was a good time to answer. Warning: Long, essay-like post to follow.

You know how your mom or dad has a saying that you know they are going to say no matter what? When it comes to my sewing, my mom, the Colonel, likes to say, “You don’t even sew for your own mother.” And it’s true, I don’t sew for my own mother. But, I don’t sew for anyone! And she wore a uniform five days a week since I was six! What was I going to make her? Fatigues? BDUs? Scrubs? She didn’t need me to make her anything! yes, I know I’m being defensive.

I always wanted to learn how to sew. The fact is, I learned to sew from a 1970s edition of Readers Digest Complete Guide to Sewing and trial and error. Really. I’ve said it before, and Erica B. agrees with me, ‘If you can read. You can do anything.’ And I was reading before kindergarten, but I digress. Well, before I digress, my older brother Ted was reading at three. So, when I didn’t start reading until I was five, I’m sure my parents got worried and started to hail a short bus to take me to pre-k. Now, I digress.

Back in middle school I would go to the Army PX in Grafenwhoer, Germany and stare at the pattern catalogs thinking about how great it would be if I knew how to sew. I remember one particular ‘wardrober’ pattern that I just lusted for. It helped that all the clothes carried at the AAFES were foul and expensive and my mother was tasteful and…. ‘thrifty’ with her money.

My junior year of high school I finally took a home ec class and learned how to thread and use a sewing machine. I made some stuffed animals and a pair of ugly black polyester pants and wore the living daylights out of them. I was in boarding school at the time and came home on break and begged my mom for a sewing machine. She schlepped out to Wal Mart at 5:00 a.m. on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) and got me a $99 Brother sewing machine. Which is funny because I now refuse to go near the mall on Black Friday.

Now, despite the fact that my mother’s father was a tailor and her mother was a seamstress, my mom didn’t (and still doesn’t) know how to thread a sewing machine. She gave me the machine for Christmas 1993 and essentially said, ‘Go with G*d’ and left me to my own devices.

I honestly just read the manual, bought patterns and fabric willy nilly and made up whatever I wanted. And no, things didn’t fit right and the wrong fabrics were used but I was learning. I was also fearless in my sewing ignorance. When you don’t know knits are supposed to be hard you just go ahead and make them. I didn’t think twice about making trouser flys or buttonholes. BWOF? Saw it in the back of Vogue and bought a subscription. Not a freaking clue what I was doing. But, I also didn’t pre-treat fabric or know there was any other kind of interfacing outside of the $0.99 a yard variety at Joann’s.

Then in college back in 1995 or so there was this fancy new thing called the internet (my freshman class was the first required to have email addresses at the University of Maryland). I discovered eBay and bought the Readers Digest and kept sewing. But this time, I actually could check out how to put something together.

I made a lot of clothes when I wasn’t making any money my first two jobs. I like to think they were cute. But, who knows anymore. I stopped sewing when I had a p/t job at Lord and Taylor and I didn’t *need* clothes. Over the years I sewed occasionally when the mood struck or I needed to crank out a gift.

After about two-year break, I found this review on PR by Erica B. I was totally and completely blown away. I couldn’t believe that something like that came out of someone’s house! The sewing bug bit me so hard I still have a welt. I quickly discovered Gorgeous Things and Diary of a Sewing Fanatic. Now, it’s a whole new world. There are so many terrific blogs out there with valuable information and loads of inspiration.

I’ve got a lot more books now and a better knowledge base, but at the end of the day, I still feel like I’ve just started to sew. I always say it, but people don’t believe me, I have limited technical skills. I’ve learned more in the last year than I did in 10 years of sewing. I can thank Tany, Dawn and Summerset for that! It helps that the internet let me find women my age who also sew. It really helps that I love clothes and hate, hate, hate to shop.

So, if you’ve managed to get through this link-lite, photoless essay, and you’re a beginner. I just want to tell you that *anyone* can sew. Don’t be immobilized with fear. I *do* think it’s easy. But, I also think that the more you sew, the better you will get. Skills come with time. It’s more important right now to just try.

And to my mother who bought me my first machine, thank you. I can say it’s within the last year the Colonel has become my biggest sewing fan and an avid reader of Miss Celie’s Pants. She listens to me go on and on about fabric and patterns and new projects ad nauseum. When I got my latest machine (which I freaking LOVE) all my mom had to say was, “That better be coming to Panama with you. I need some curtains”.

So, I guess I *will* be sewing for my own mother.