I identify as a person who sews

Nancy and Becky 1970

 I have been sewing since I was 10 years old.  I started by making clothes for my Barbie dolls.  My mom bought panels of fabric that had the patterns for the Barbie clothes stamped on them.  

I learned to sew on my mom's Featherweight sewing machine.   My mom sewed all sorts of things on that machine including matching dresses for my sister and I.  If I write "watermelon dresses" Carol will know exactly what I mean.    I can still see my mom at the dining-room table finishing up my dress for picture day at school.

My mom sewing on her Featherweight.  I have it now!

 

 

In high school I mainly wore jeans.  But all of my dresses and some slacks and skirts were home made by me.  I am wearing one of the dresses I made in the picture above.   

I worked for Singer (sewing machine) Company when I was in high school and again after we got married.  The picture is of my step mother, Becky, and me demonstrating a sewing machine at my work.

When we lived in Bangkok I made a lot of clothing including a ton of maternity dresses!  By then I had a fancier sewing machine that I bought while working at Singer.  And I made a little gown that I bought Courtney home from the hospital in.  I am sure all five kids, as babies, wore that gown. 

This is the gown, and a picture of baby Galileo wearing the gown when he was one month old.

For as many years as I can remember  I sewed all of my kids' Halloween costumes.  with five kids that's a lot of sewing.  I remember feeling so sad when I only had two and then one and then no costumes to sew.   It was such a big thing to me.  The kids created the ideas for their costumes and my sewing machine and I brought them to life.  I still have many of those costumes in a Rubbermaid bin in the basement.

I made a load of dresses for my grandnieces, my sister's granddaughters during the eight years I was their daycare provider.   It was so much find finding the fabrics and patterns so I could make matching dresses!

A variety of the things I have made for the girls and for my own kids.

Okay, so what the heck prompted me to write this?  Well, as a grandmother, I wanted to sew some cute clothes for my grand-baby, Galileo.    I bought a lot of cute fabric and wanted to prepare it before sewing it.   I always wash fabric before I sew it.  I know that cotton especially makes a mess of the cut edges when you wash it.  I thought that making a quick line of sewing would help prevent this.  Actually I know that it will. 

I have a fancy sewing machine as well as a serger.  I decided that it would be better to serge the fabric edges.  I went to my serger and discovered that I don't remember how to thread the thing.  Plus, when I tried running it, it was very stiff.  I have not used my serger or sewing machine in over a year.  Maybe even longer than that.   

A serger had several threads that need to be run through it in order for it to work.  Mine has four threads.  And each one has to be threaded just right or everything will jam up and not work at all.   

I am going to have to take my laptop computer and place it next to my serger to watch a video of how to correctly thread it.  I am so disappointed in myself.   What should have been an easy task has turned into a job.  It's my fault.  I need to sew more.  with me luck!

My serger with the bottom open