It had been more than 30 years since I’d sewn for myself. I used to sew a lot, but once I went back to teaching I stopped. I spent a month preparing to begin again. I shopped in my sister’s closets for fabric, purchased some new tools: pins, sewing machine needles, scissors, and a rotary cutter with its accompanying paraphernalia and got my 1968 Montgomery Wards sewing machine serviced. I made space for sewing in my “pink room” by giving away things I no longer needed to own. Good-bye crystals, rocks, and fossils you all went to good homes. Then, I spent some time researching, refreshing my memory on various kinds of seams and sewing techniques as well as learning how to adjust and/or resize patterns.
I wanted a three-tiered full skirt similar to ones I had purchased and worn to shreds. I didn’t have a pattern and I wanted it to have a side pocket. So, as in life, once I had an idea, the tools, and some knowledge then I had to gather the courage to take the first step. I walked through my uncertainty with my Higher Power, trusted it would work out, and began cutting. I made mistakes but they weren’t catastrophic. I’m grateful I had more fabric than I actually needed because in the end I needed almost all of it to make up for my flawed thinking and 3 different cutting errors. (Thank you Higher Power, I get more than one chance to get things right.) There was some ripping out and redoing. The skirt wasn’t perfect and didn’t turn out exactly as I had envisioned but I was proud it was wearable and I’d learned some things I could apply to my next sewing project. I am grateful for the people who helped me along the way and I am grateful I was able to be patient with myself as I walked this new, old path, one step at a time.
Living the principles in all my affairs, even sewing: courage, faith, humility, perseverance, discipline, willingness, trust, acceptance, compassion and gratitude.
Susan B. (February 2019)
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