My Sewing Start
Almost every memory of my childhood home includes a visual of my mother’s Singer 626 in the foyer entrance. We lived in a small home and that was the only space with adequate lighting to sew. That honey oak sewing cabinet was the first thing you saw when you walked into the house, and the last thing you saw when leaving.
I watched my mother create many things on that machine. From kitchen curtains to knee patches for my brother’s jeans and matching sunflower dresses for me and my sister. Entering high school at all of 4’9” tall and weighing about 70 pounds, it was impossible to find adult clothes that fit, and if I stood any chance of being a cool kid, it was going to start with not wearing children’s clothes in high school.
In the mid-1970s, size 3 was the smallest I could find and that was still two sizes too big for me. Alterations were my only hope and my mother told me that I would have to learn to do that myself. It would be a life skill that I would use forever she said. At the time, I had no idea how true that would come to be and how much I would treasure that gift from her.
She helped me sew many things, including curtains for my first home when I got married. I don’t have those curtains anymore, but the time we spent shopping for the fabric, choosing a pattern and making them I will never forget.
As my youngest was about to graduate high school, I joined a ministry team at my church to give back using the skill of sewing that my mother had taught me 35 years earlier. After her passing in 2017, I purchased a Janome Memory Craft 8900 that would have astonished her. But her memory lives on through her giving gift as I sew and help others to create and donate items for our community partners through Seauxing Seeds Foundation.
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