Musings

Reflections on life lived by a coast

  • Home
  • Travel
  • Yoga
You are here: Home / Back to Basics / Virtual Valentine to Mom

Virtual Valentine to Mom

February 15, 2016 •

Mom wearing a suit that she had made

Mom and Dad

This Valen­tine Day’s week­end was a time to remem­ber Mom. My mem­o­ries were trig­gered by the sound of sewing shears cut­ting through fab­ric on the din­ing room table. I was cut­ting out pieces for a med­i­ta­tion cush­ion, using a fab­ric rem­nant from cur­tains Mom made us years ago.

Remembering Mom’s Craft Skills

My mother was a remark­ably tal­ented seam­stress and tai­lor. She loved the chal­lenge of visu­al­iz­ing and then exe­cut­ing com­plex sewing pat­terns, such as the French cou­turier design­ers’ pat­terns that she would buy from Vogue. Her friends admired her fash­ion flair and skill at cre­at­ing multi piece out­fits, like the suit shown here.

Look­ing back, it’s hard to believe that she made me a Chris­t­ian Dior suit with a cape, as my back-to-school out­fit for sec­ond grade. Except for its yel­low satin lin­ing, the suit was very aus­tere — com­pletely inap­pro­pri­ate for school­yard play — and prob­a­bly too severe for a child to wear to church. I had no fash­ion sense, but learned to adore the way the cape could soar like a bird’s wing or Super­man’s cloak. I’d pump the swings as high as they could go, or jump down from tree branches, just to make the cape bil­low and flash its bright yel­low lin­ing.

Meditation cushion

Remem­ber­ing Mom while cut­ting fab­ric for a zab­u­ton

Unlike the other moms we knew, our mother sewed pro­fes­sion­ally while rais­ing six chil­dren. Peo­ple would come to our house so she could tai­lor their suits (she did­n’t have her own car). Shortly after giv­ing birth to her sev­enth child, Mom re-entered the work­force and became a bank­ing pro­fes­sional. From then on her sewing down­shifted to a seri­ous hobby, reserved for spe­cial occa­sion out­fits.

Our child­hood mem­o­ries are steeped in images of her sewing, the sounds of the machine and the shears slic­ing through lay­ers of fab­ric. She may not have inter­acted with us as much as we would have liked, but we under­stood how ded­i­cated she was to her craft. She was pas­sion­ate about sewing, even though she never said so explic­itly. (She was more likely to ratio­nal­ize it as a money-sav­ing endeavor…)

We trea­sure the mem­o­ries of her gifted hand­i­work: the Easter out­fits, the new clothes for school, gowns for proms or wed­dings, and later, chris­ten­ing gowns for her grand­chil­dren. Sadly, there are few pho­tos of the cloth­ing she made for the peo­ple she loved.

Learning from Mom

Mom taught me to knit and sew when I was six. No doubt it was a tac­tic to dis­tract me while she tended the younger chil­dren, or worked on dead­line for some­one’s promised out­fit. No mat­ter her moti­va­tion, I’ve always been grate­ful for her lessons. Given parental anx­i­eties today, it’s hard to believe that she encour­aged me to use her sewing machine when I was just 6 years old…

For the first 30 years of my life I sewed or knit­ted almost every­thing I wore, from blue jeans to dresses and out­er­wear. I also made my brides­maids’ dresses.

From our New Eng­land homes, I had easy access to woolen mills; could buy fab­rics and yarns at out­let prices directly from the pro­duc­ers. Mom loved going on those fab­ric shop­ping expe­di­tions, dri­ving across rural New Hamp­shire in search of woolen mills.

It’s been a long time since I went on a fab­ric or fiber shop­ping adven­ture… It’s been way too long since I did any sewing.

Dusting Off Those Crafting Skills

Last week I tried to mend a gar­ment and dis­cov­ered my Pfaff sewing machine was in dire need of a tune-up, after sit­ting idle for years while I focused on a West Coast career. Luck­ily I found a great repair ser­vice for this vin­tage machine, and it was all tuned up and back home within two days.

To relearn my sewing skills, I’ve begun work on a med­i­ta­tion cush­ion using mate­ri­als on hand. It’s been an inter­est­ing expe­ri­ence, relearn­ing how to use this machine, how to rewind the bob­bin or select the right presser foot for the task, and how to exe­cute things I’ve long since for­got­ten, such as how to insert a zip­per for a pil­low cush­ion. It’s also caus­ing my fin­gers to move in unac­cus­tomed ways, to exe­cute pre­cise tasks like thread­ing a nee­dle — remind­ing me that my fin­gers aren’t as dex­ter­ous as they used to be.

Assembling a knitted sweater

Assem­bling a knit­ted sweater this week­end

I’ve noticed a change in the qual­ity of the writ­ten instruc­tions that accom­pany the sewing pat­terns. For exam­ple, my pat­tern says, “Insert the zip­per.” Pat­terns writ­ten years ago would have explained how… Luck­ily, I’ve got some old ref­er­ence guides that describe alter­na­tive meth­ods (e.g., for gar­ments ver­sus pil­lows), so I was able to insert the zip­per with­out hav­ing to rip it out and start over.

I’ve also resumed work on a knit­ting project I began a few months ago, com­mit­ted to fin­ish­ing it before win­ter’s end. As the photo shows, I’ve embarked on the trick­i­est part: seam­ing the pieces and attach­ing the sleeves to the body of the sweater. If all goes well, this project will be done this week.

Thanks, Mom, for shar­ing your love of sewing and knit­ting. They bring me joy — and remind me of you when­ever my hands are occu­pied with fiber crafts.

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

Recent Posts

  • Wet Sand, Wet Boots, Birds
  • Living with Vintage Items
  • Slowing Down
  • Reflections on My Camino
  • Going Off the Beaten Track in France

© 2020 by Christine Thompson. All rights reserved. • Log in