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My love of sewing started a long time ago, when I was in the 7th grade. My Home-Ec teacher was Mrs. Mary Ann Windham. It seems like we spent half the school year learning to cook and the other half sewing. I had been doing some cooking at home so that didn’t interest me quite as much. My mother could sew, but she had not tried to teach me. We started out making an apron. Each step had to be approved by the teacher. So, we laid out the pattern on our fabric and Mrs. Windham had to approve it before we cut it out. Then we pinned the pieces together and got approval before we sewed the seam. There was only a few sewing machines in the classroom, so we had to share. But I loved that class. Our second project in the class was a garment. I made a dress. I decided that I would be taking Home-Ec every year until I graduated. I sewed that summer. I made most of my school clothes for the next year. My mother was thrilled that I loved to sew, and helped me when I ran into problems. She had an old sewing machine, which only had a forward and reverse stitch.
Then came 8th grade. I couldn’t wait for sewing class. But it was such a pain. Having to get each step approved slowed the whole process down, having to share the sewing machines, and taking six weeks to complete a project that I could do in one Saturday was so unsettling. I decided that Home-Ec classes were not for me, but I continued to sew and make clothes. Soon, I was doing most all the sewing for me and my mother. I also made my father and brothers western shirts. It was so much fun to create the clothing. I learned to alter the patterns. I sort of surpassed my mother’s sewing ability. My father was supportive. When I got frustrated with my mother’s machine, he promised me a new sewing machine. He told me if I helped my mother to cook and feed all the watermelon workers, and that if he had a good year he would buy me a new machine.
I didn’t get it that year. He didn’t have a good crop that year and he felt bad about promising me and not being able to follow thru. The next year he told me that as soon as he sold the first load, I could get my sewing machine. He let me order the one I wanted. It did almost everything a sewing machine could do at the time. I was so proud. I sewed many a’mile on that machine. I had a lot of people ask me to sew for them, but I discovered that people did not want to pay for the time you spent. Also, homemade was considered inferior for some folks that had worn homemade when they were younger. So, even if the garment looked and fit wonderfully, it was still inferior and therefore, they didn’t want to pay. I soon learned that everyone wasn’t honest and didn’t feel that they had to pay me, simply because I was a teenager. I learned that I didn’t have to sew for everyone. So, I only sewed for the few who appreciated it.
In the summer, I worked in tobacco. I think that I have mentioned this before. But when I got paid, I spent my money on fabric. Saturday, as Aleta and I were going to Fannin Springs, I pointed out the old building on the west side of Hwy 19, which at one time had been a fabric store. I mentioned that I had spent a lot of my tobacco earnings at that store. I had not thought about that store in a long time.
Aleta and I both have bought a lot of fabric that we have not gotten around to using. My sewing room overflows with fabric. Some of it I will probably never use. Some of it I look at today and wonder what in the world was I thinking. I have tried to go thru and sort and maybe get rid of some of it. But mostly, I just refold and put it back, ‘cause you know, I might just still find some use for it. I had thought that I would sew more when I retired. But I guess that I’m still trying to figure out, after 3 years, just what retirement means for me.
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