Resentment and Desperation Equals A Feel Good Moment
Random hilarious photo of Posy because both cameras have left the house.
Yesterday morning I woke up in a panic, having remembered (in a dream?) that Posy had a dance dress-rehearsal at 2pm, and her dance costume, which I had been meaning to tackle for, ummm, six months, hadn't been altered yet.
That is not something that you want to face at 7.45 on a sunny Saturday morning. I really, really don't like the sewing machine. It doesn't like me. Every time I use it.. maybe about once a year, I have to get the manual out again to remember how to thread it up, and fill a bobbin. Then the bobbin thread breaks half-way along a seam, or I sew the wrong bits together, and every single time I put the pins in the wrong way, then sigh loudly, and have to take them all out and turn them around before continuing.
Naturally, I spent most of the morning procrastinating. I made pancakes, I read Harry Potter to Posy, I did some weeding, read me some internet, and ironically, some more of my current book Radical Homemakers.
Finally, at midday, I sat down at the sewing machine. Posy's dance teacher had accidentally ordered her a costume that was a size too large. From the US. Really? We have a local dance shop, and lots of talented dressmakers. Rosy's ballet school uses locally-made costumes, and reuses them year after year, so we rent those, and so far I have managed to get away with altering costumes by using safety pins and optimism. Posy goes to a simple little dance school within walking distance, only one lesson a week, a gorgeous teacher, but we have to buy preordered costumes. Sigh.
Anyway, here I was with one costume that needed two inches taken out of its middle, and another one that needed its legs shortened. And two powder-blue fingerless gloves that were designed for a child without twig-like arms. They kept flying off across the room during rehearsal. It took me over half an hour to work out how to cut two inches out of the middle of the leotard and reattach it to the skirt seam. The whole time I was very grumpy at myself, because I had had six months to take it to a dress maker to alter it, and hadn't, and I could be outside in the garden RIGHT NOW if I had been more organised. I finished clattering the last seam (I wonder if that sewing machine should be clattering?) approximately seven minutes before we were due out the door. They fit! The costumes FIT! There was happy squealing and jumping up and down.
I still really don't like sewing, but I feel so good. I actually did a sewing job, and it worked! I fixed a dance costume. Don't you love that moment when you feel like a really good parent?
Comments
And you clearly deserve a good mother medal.
I don't own a sewing machine. Why set myself up to battle a thing whose kind have always hated me, since 2nd form in the late 70s?
Yet being in a family of boys who have fewer skills in the stitching business, is good for my ego. My value rises with every button I reattach. Sometimes I fall for my created myth of being the seamstress of the house and think I will buy a sewing machine. Then I remember. I can't sew.
And look at your time management skills. You had time to spare before you had to leave!
I also normally tackle a sewing machine one a year. Bobbins are mystical creates that cast spells against me. And who the heck came up with the threading guides for the top of the machine? Could it be more complicated?
Heather, everything feels so much better when stop procrastinating and just do it - you'd think I'd have learned that by now...
Fran, I love the sound of those fantastic costumes, esp. Godzilla. Brilliant! Thanks for lovely eggs!
from when I was about 6. Barbie clothes were my starting point, then some MC Hammer pants for me. :P
Jessie, one of the many reasons my sewing job took so long is that Posy 'helped'. Oh lordy! But of course it is the same process as having them 'help' in the kitchen. It drives you to drink for the first few years, then they can cook better than you, and you can retire.... (well, that was my dream, hasn't quite happened yet. They can cook beautifully, but often choose not to....).
I hope you still have those pants!