Hitting the Blocks

I first learned how to sew in grade school. I wanted so badly to make pretty things, but my mother’s sewing machine hated me. It was an old, refurbished second-hand White, and I could not get the thing to perform for me. Of course it behaved just fine for Mom–she’d learned to sew on a Singer a few years younger than dirt and knew how to whip unruly sewing machines into shape.

But every single time I sat down at that infernal machine, it was a battle. One I rarely won. Then again, it didn’t help that I picked nice easy first-time projects like a full-sized LeMoyne Star quilt. I still quail at the thought of all those mitered corners. Agh. I think I eventually gave the pieces away. In the end, the machine beat me–I gave up sewing (except my counted cross-stitch, but that’s another story)

But in 2002 my mother got me a Husqvarna Lily 535 as a wedding gift. Suddenly, I had a machine that liked me, that wanted to make beautiful things together. My Lily is a nice, even-tempered machine. Maybe she doesn’t have all the bells and whistles, but we work well together.

With a biddable machine to assist me, I started making curtains for our new house. Then clothing for myself. Then skirts for one friend and prom dresses for another. Somewhere in there I attempted a baby quilt (our church makes memory quilts for each child born or adopted into our families). It turned out nice, but certainly nothing to shout about.

When my daughter was born I made crib sheets, sleepers, special pants when her allergies made her itchy all over. By the end of 2005 I was making baby quilts again. Nowadays it’s very difficult to tear me away from the sewing table.

In fact, I’ve a date with Lily right now (two baby quilts to do the actual quilting on).

TTFN!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007 at 11:27 pm and is filed under Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.