Domestic Goddess I Am Not...

but a girl can keep trying!  So Saturday, we spent the day doing a top-to-bottom cleaning of the house.  I won't say it was a deep clean, because we had to get it done all in one day, and I always seem to miss a spot somewhere.  (This time it was the window sills.  Yipes!)   So anyway, yesterday afternoon, my domestic streak continued.  The only 'pile' left after all our cleaning was a Giant One of clothes that needed mending/hemming/otherwise adjusting.

Now, I have been taught to sew by my dear Momma.  She sewed a great many of my childhood clothes, my favourites being some of the fancy dresses for Easter and Christmas.  Oh, but then there was the Little Red Riding Hood costume that I wore for Halloween about four years in a row.  Or the Christmas plaid dress with crisp white pinafore, and matching outfit for my Cabbage Patch.  Or the prom dress that made me feel like a princess.  Momma is a gifted seamstress.  

This does not mean, however, that I have made the most of her faithful teaching.  I have sewn, in my lifetime, exactly four projects, and all of them with Momma at hand to remind me how to thread the machine and to help me with the pattern cutting and fabric choosing:

1. A pair of shorts in Sewing for Kids class in the community education programme when I was about 8.  They were pink, with white teddy bears on them.  I don't know if I ever wore them.
   
2. A few pairs of curtains for our first house.  They were blue and red plaid for the living room, yellow prairie print for the bathroom, and blue and yellowish plaid for the bedroom (if I remember correctly).  Can anyone say "Country!"  Thankfully, my tastes have evolved (though I still seem to have some plaid chair cushions at the moment, but we'll ignore that since I'm living in England on a student budget and have to take whatever I can get at the cheapest cost!).
   
3. Little Man's nursery set, with major contributions from Momma.  We made matching curtains, bed linens for the crib, pillows, and even a changing table pad cover!  In the sweetest little retro cowboy print you could ever find!
   
4. An unfinished quilt, which Momma and I cut the squares for, and then laid out on the floor and began to sew together in looooooong strips (in her defense, this was before Momma became the quilt mistress that she is today).  We have since ripped the seams from those long strips and pieced them into more sensible 9-blocks.  But they still aren't joined into an actual quilt.

Given this less-than-stellar sewing career, I have been too intimidated to break out the borrowed sewing machine on my own.  It has sat in my dining room for months, while The Pile of mending grew and grew and grew.  I bought a dress in June that would have been perfect for summer, but it needed one little tweak before it was presentable.  I'm wearing it today for the first time because it sat in The Pile all summer long.  Little Man is down to one pair of school uniform trousers that fit him - six other pairs inhabited The Pile, waiting to be hemmed.  The last pair was in the laundry and not going to be ready for school today, so I finally broke down and faced my fears.

I set up the machine, got out all my sewing 'gear', and took a quick browse through the machine's owner's manual to be sure I remembered how to thread the machine and bobbin.  Over the course of Sunday late afternoon and evening, I worked my way through The Whole Pile (almost).  In the process, I broke and replaced the needle, took the machine apart a couple of times and put it back together successfully, and even taught myself a new stitch, the blind hem stitch!  And all without one, single phone call to Momma!!!!  :)

There are still three more pairs of Little Man's trousers in The Pile, but I think we'll just let him grow into them, as we don't really need that many pairs in rotation.  A beastly stack of drapes still needs hemming, but they are lined and I didn't have the strength to face them at 10:30 last night.  Same with Big Man's work trousers, which need 12 buttons sewn on so he can start using braces (suspenders).  TWELVE buttons.  Big Man might have to do them himself.  :)

Nevertheless I am beaming with pride.  I conquered my fear!  I faced The Machine all by myself, and worked it into submission.  I own that machine.  Except it's borrowed, but you know what I mean.  :)