home work

It always takes me by surprise, how suddenly the days seem to grow shorter at this time of year. The change in the weather is gradual enough that you might not notice it so much, especially as cool days are still interspersed with warmer ones.  But suddenly, at six o' clock... dusk??!!

I feel ready for the change this year, though.  Normally fall makes me feel very restless - the cool weather makes me feel like I should be changing, but instead my life is stagnating.  This year, my life is so different that I can hardly feel that way, and so I have pleasanter associations - I think of doing cozy things at home, like finally dismembering that pumpkin that's sitting on the table, and making something with it (the butternut squash has been disposed of, and I'm happy to say I still have all my fingers - I always struggle to cut those things).

I feel as though the shorter, colder days also lend themselves to other kinds of home work that I'm not so great at.  For example, sewing.  I was thinking today, as I contemplated yet another shirt with a tear at a seam, that it's rather odd that most people have lost their ability to sew.  I know there's been a big resurgence in "home arts," like knitting, and "crafts," like felting, but very few people can do something as simple and practical as hem a skirt.  I certainly wouldn't trust myself to do a good job with that.  But isn't it smart to be able to manage such basic tasks, so you're better equipped to tackle dropped hems and split-seam emergencies?

With this (and more grandiose plans) in mind, I took a sewing class at FIT a few years ago.  It was a beginning sewing class, but for me it was hardly easy.  We did most of our sewing on machines, and after proving our ability to use the machine to sew straight lines (which the home-sewers rolled their eyes at) and then learning to sew several different kinds of seams (a good education even if you only use it to inspect garments you buy), we made a muslin "bodice" (the top part of a dress, with a zipper in the back), a skirt with a vent in back, and, for the grand finale, a shirt - a button-down shirt with long sleeves, a collar, and cuffs.  I was still working full time, and I had to stay up until two o' clock one morning, crying over the sewing machine as I struggled to finish this shirt.  It took me about fourteen hours to make it (mind you that it would take people in a factory in china probably about an hour).  It was really an exercise in spacial relations, because you sew inside out, so everything is backwards, but you still have to keep track of right and left - and how do you sew a collar onto the yoke of a shirt in such a way that all the seams are on the inside?  My most frequently-used tool was the seam-ripper, since about a quarter of the time I had to tear out what I'd done and do it all over again.  Oh, and if you've cut something the wrong way... forget it!

Of course there was a part of me that wanted to say "I'm terrible at this, just terrible, it's no use!"  And it's true that I have no natural talent for activities that require a high level of precision, like sewing.  But one thing that I've learned as I've gotten to my very advanced age, is that there are few things that one doesn't get much better at through practice.  While perhaps I won't be sewing myself a prom dress anytime soon, but I can at least try to exercise some basic, useful skills. 

So in my penny-pinching lately, I've been doing a bit more sewing on my own; I've clumsily mended a tear at the waist band of an old pair of trousers, sewed on a few buttons (though I always did that), and now I've got another seam to contend with.  If I really achieve a steadier hand, perhaps hemming won't be beyond reach, after all - we did have to hand-hem in the sewing class, but somehow doing it on an ugly skirt made of the cheapest red cotton I could buy feels a lot less risky than trying it out on something I actually like!  And, I think a goal this winter will be to attempt to make at least one garment - I have some old dress patterns tucked away, and that is definitely a very good project for a long, snowy Saturday afternoon... though perhaps I should start by attempting some new cases for our sofa cushions!

Comments

[Amanda]

Please keep me posted on your progress with the hemming. I have a skirt with a dropped hem that I've been putting off bringing to the tailor.....

[Awake]

Great - I need something to practice on. Bring it over! I have some turquoise thread handy, hope it will match...