My Passion for Sewing Begins

I started my serious crafting fetish with crocheting and sewing. The crocheting was a talent passed down from my father’s mother but I learned to sew thanks to my mother’s mother. In the summer I often came down to visit my grandparents after we had moved away and I would be shuttled between grandparents for the weeks I was visiting. I was probably around 7 or 8 when my Grandma Mary taught me how to sew. (She also taught me how to knit but sadly that never seemed to stick and I still want to relearn that skill.) My very first project was a pair of jams. Come on, admit it, you remember them – those knee length board shorts in outrageous patterns we all wore. It was the early Eighties after all. (Oops, I just date myself didn’t I?) Grandma Mary and I made a trip to the local fabric store and picked out a pattern and fabric. I can’t even remember the fabric, but I am sure it was dated and ugly and probably involved a fluorescent color scheme. We picked jams in particular because it was an easy pattern and my Grandmother and I pulled out her sewing machine and she taught me the steps from pre-washing the fabric to laying out and cutting the pattern and in a matter of hours I had a brand new pair of shorts that I could wear that I made all by myself (with a little help from Grandma, of course)! I was hooked. Who knew that one little pair of shorts would lead to a lifetime of unfinished projects packed away in my sewing closet. That’s not to say I don’t finish anything. I do indeed. But trying to balance a busy life with a passion for crafting is often difficult, as many of you well know, and sadly, life wins out a majority of the time. Hey! A girl’s got to pay her bills! But there are those key pieces I put on from time to time that make me smile when my friends ooh and aah and ask where I got them and I get to say, “I made it.” And to think it all started with a pair of jams made in my grandmother’s spare bedroom on my great-grandmother’s sewing machine. My Great-Grandmother Agnes was a seamstress and would be so proud.