I surprised myself tonight. I just went upstairs, thinking I might sew for 10 minutes. Once I started sewing, I just felt like I could sew forever. I put another round of light colors on several of the log cabin blocks and prepped strips to put another round on the remaining blocks.
As I was sewing on the old Kenmore, I could faintly smell sewing oil as the machine heated up. This is a comforting smell to me for some really odd reason. It doesn't remind me of anyone, really. Even though my grandmother's both sewed, they weren't really prolific sewers while I was around them. I think I draw comfort from this smell because of me. I'm comfortable at the machine. I'm confident at the machine. And I enjoy being there. I have accomplished alot at that machine. So maybe it isn't really that odd that I'm comforted by the slight smell of sewing machine oil. I have only good associations with it.
I say that my grandmother's didn't sew much around me, and that's true. My maternal grandmother ran a tavern for most of my life until she retired well into my adult life. She would tell stories of sewing her skirts and outfits. She also told stories of sewing outfits for her brother (my great uncle here in town still) and his band members. Uncle Ray still plays in a band today and he is 82 years old, although I am sure he has been buying his band outfits for quite some time.
My paternal grandmother did actually sew in her later years, but not much on the machine. She always had some kind of hand project to crochet, which she taught all her granddaughters to do. When I was 17 I made my first quilt between my senior year of high school and my first year of college. She and I put it up in a frame and hand quilted it. I had to go to school before it was finished but she finished it, and many more after it. She caught the quilting bug, making embroidered tops and hand quilting them all. When her eyes could no longer see, she went back to crocheting, and did that pretty much til the end of her life. I believe she crocheted by feel those last few years. She did beautiful work.
And going a little further back into my sewing lineage, my maternal great grandmother, with whom I lived with until I was 12, did some light mending and a little bit of crocheting. When she was younger she made doilies as fine as lace, and crocheting and embroidered along the edges of pillowcases. When cleaning out my grandmother's house in St. Louis, I found a set of pillowcases I think she may have made. They weren't sewn together on the bottoms of them. I stitched them up and am using them.
Now, Mom, on the other hand, has no desire to pick up a needle or crochet hook. She is a thoroughly modern woman, a high achiever with her feet firmly planted on terra firma. She works in a skyscraper in Chicago for a law firm as a paralegal and loves the constant energy of the city. And she is one of my heroes.
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