A Needle and Thread

... at least the needle had an eye
through which I could push the thread ...

I have been thinking about sewing for many days now.

The ideas may have come to my mind because a pearl button fell off of a jean jacket that is not mine.

The jacket I wear Rebecca’s.

I told her that I would sew it back on if she would bring me a needle and thread.

I wear the jacket when I am here.

I have tried to get it off her, dispossession – by telling her it is old, or that she will not be able to fit it again, or I just tell her outright that I love jean apparel more than she does and if for that reason only, the jacket should go to me.

Or I may have been thinking about sewing when I read an article where the author was bemoaning the loss of the skills that some of us picked up in high school: how to sew, how to cook, how to repair a car, how to type, even how to do simple accounting. Old people have a habit of warning young people that they are not developing skills that will keep them alive. My grandfather told me that I was wasting my time in high school. What I really needed to know was how to start a fire. He thought I should go into the field behind my house and practise that art of fire building until I was good at it. I gave him the fact that starting a fire might have been a desirable skill that served his mother well, but I couldn’t see how cooking over a campfire that I had started myself was going to be of much use to me. Oh, I didn’t tell him that. I only thought it.

... nothing so satisfying as a button with a strong shank ...

Sewing had also come to my mind, for I was wondering where the party dress was that I made in Sewing 30. We had to make an evening dress using chiffon, taffeta or silk. I picked out a highly patterned abstract printed pink fabric, with a pattern that high lighted a closing in the front with about 10 graceful scallops all of which had hand bound button holes which my teacher taught me to do, and which I executed with extreme precision. When it was time to hem the dress, she told me to bring a pair of high heels to class and she would turn the hem for me. While she was on her knees, with pins in her mouth, making the hem even, she asked me if I were going to wear it to the high school graduation evening dance. I was horrified. I hadn’t ever thought that the dress would be worn – I was only making it for a project. Wear it and dance with a boy? That sounded like torture on both fronts and that was absolutely not something that had ever entered my mind that I would want to do.

Another girl in the class was making a strapless gown to wear. I can remember the detailed instructions about how that dress was going to be held up. My classmate had the figure for it. Strapless dresses were banned in my religious community so I knew I would never be wearing a dress like that. Still I was interested in how the bodice was being boned and if I fanaticized ever wearing that dress, all I could think of is that if I tried to do a 360 degree turn it it, my body would make the turn and the dress would be left behind.

I have no idea why I was thinking about sewing. Perhaps because I have been thinking sewing because I have been thinking about knitting as well. A lot of old people knit. I don’t mean the old people from my past were knitters, those I watched when I was young. I mean the old people who are knitters and in my cohort, now. Some knit to keep their hands busy. Some knit because knitting fills their minds with joy – maybe in the intricacies of the patterns they can create. My idea of knitting is finding a sweater at the thrift store that has been hand knit and that I can now buy for less than the wool cost the knitter.

What may be worrying me is that I am a sewer, but I am pretty sure that when I get so old that I have to go into a home, that I won’t be able to take my sewing machine with me. Now if I were a knitter, I could take along my needles and my wool, but I don’t think sewing in the old folks home is an open option. I have been watching those old folks homes. There is hardly room for a bed in a room, let alone a sewing machine.