My Earliest Sewing Memory
I grew up in a home that encouraged my interest in sewing and art from an early age.
As the story goes, my love of fabric began the moment thehospital wrapped me in a blanket and handed me to my mom. I was alreadyfingering the edge of the blanket. She thought it was cute. Little did sheknow!
A Charity Project
My earliest memory of sewing was my mom working on a charityproject for the Christian Mothers Society at our church. They were making“Dooley Bags” for The Dr. Tom Dooley Foundation refugee camps in Laos, Vietnamand Cambodia. This was the early 1960s and I was three at the time.
The bags were simple folds of fabric, stitched on two sides, and a tube stitched at the top. A shoe-string was inserted in the tube, making it a draw-string type bag. Other volunteers at the church filled the bags with donated toiletries.
Of course, I didn’t know why or what she was making at thetime. I just knew it would help people. As I got older, I learned more aboutthe project. The bags were distributed to refugees in the camps. Sanitation isfrequently a problem in refugee populations. According to Seth Jacobs, "…inlarge part due to his [Dr. Tom Dooley] vigilance, not a single epidemic brokeout in Hainphong or on the ships leaving for Saigon.[1]"People all over the United States made and donated these bags and it appears itmade a difference.
My Part
I started by threading shoe-strings through the tube edgingson the bags to turn them into drawstring bags. I would finish up the stack ofbags my mom made and beg for more to thread. Now, my real fascination waswatching my mom take flat pieces of fabric, run them through the machine andmake something useful, a drawstring bag. It was magic!
Starting to Sew
After much begging, and some help from my sewist Grandma Hutch, I was instructed on using the sewing machine. My dad built a box to hold the foot pedal at a height that I could comfortably reach with my foot. Mom, dad and grandma all stood around me. I wanted to get started. Now, it is important to note here that I don't remember a whole lot from when I was three. However, THIS was a pivotal event in my life and one of the few I do remember "as if it were yesterday."
They were all giving me instructions. Much of it centered around not getting my fingers anywhere near the needle. I was just anxious to get started. At one point my dad said (and I'll never forget this), "Now, just gently press down on the pedal, like the gas pedal on a car." (Seriously, he said that to a three-year-old)
According to my dad, my mom, grandma and I all looked at him at the same time. Me with great confusion, of course. My mom and grandma with a "you can't be serious look." I think my mom even said something like "oh Bob" and shook her head. I'm pretty sure I understood something about being careful and pressing gently on the pedal. After a couple tentative attempts, I was off and "driving" the machine.
Anyway, imagine a three year old begging from dawn to dusk to sit at the sewing machine. Not too long after that, I was off and sewing on my own. Worries about stitching my fingers were gone. It took me another 41 years to do that!
Another Lesson
To my dad's credit, he remembered this moment too. Thirteen years later when he was teaching me to drive, he said, "Now, just gently press down on the pedal, like a sewing machine pedal." We looked at each other and laughed. I knew in that moment we were both thinking of that day. The one when I learned to use the sewing machine. I remember driving day "like it was yesterday", too. It was a special moment between us. And, after that, I was off and driving the car.
What is your earliest sewing memory? How did you get started sewing?
[1] SethJacobs, America's Miracle Man in Vietnam: Ngo Dinh Diem, Religion, Race, andU.S. Intervention in Southeast Asia (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005), 150.