Bianca recently purchased her first sewing machine and asked if I’d help her learn how to use it. Me, teaching sewing. I know. I know.
While I grew up with my mama’s sewing machine on the kitchen table, I never took home ec or had any desire to be artistic. Have you met my mother? Better yet, have you met her sewing? It’s like a composer’s kid being tone deaf. Or Kim Kardashian’s kids being nuns. I was adamant. Stubborn. Obstinante, one might say. I had zero use or interest in anything that had any scent whatsoever of eu de Housewife.
Fast forward until I became a citizen of Dormistan. The land of honey and irony, all-you-can-eat-and-weight-you-can-gain-buffets and $18 checking account balances. Skipping the beat of the dance clubs for the hum of a new sewing machine was an easy decision. The latter never required: Spanx, boys, cash, or my self-conscious awkwardness in public. I was a confident know-it-all in class. I was a shy, nervous wreck at an underage club.
Today I’m a fair combination of both, but do have a bit more balance between the social and the sewing. Sadly, 9 out of 10 projects still look like something off of Regretsy. But I can’t stop. I’ve got a closet full of fabric, a binder full of patterns and am slowly but surely becoming more comfortable with my modernized Laura Ingalls Wilder spirit.
{My version of the Oregon Trail would be by Prius. With stops along the way for hiking, sleeping under the stars and hitting the half annual sales at any Nordstrom en route. Wineries, pedicures, fly fishing for dinner. I’m pretty sure Laura would have been all about getting her eyebrows waxed, hitting a hot yoga class and gossiping about that wicked Nellie Oleson over happy hour. Something tells me the oxen and cholera wouldn’t be missed.}
The first video sewing 101 tutorial, for sweet Bianca and girls everywhere who celebrate their inner modern pioneering spirit:*
Happy trails, friends!
~k
* there is a clever joke to be made about how a current Laura Ingalls Wilder would kick some Kardash ass, and what a large task that would be, and her video skills being used for good, nor horror. But I’ll leave that to you…