This is Why I Failed Home Ec...

I can’t sew.  I glue very well, however I do not sew. My grandmother sewed. My mother sews…I do not. Have I made my point perfectly clear?  Several years ago, while at an auction with my mother, I allowed myself to be convinced to buy a sewing machine. Why? Because my mother told me I’d LOVE having a sewing machine.  I have used said sewing machine twice since it was purchased. Both times were disastrous! Both times I ended up with in tears and vowing to never even look at the machine again. Oh it starts off fine…I put the machine on the table, take off the cover, plug it in. It goes downhill from there.  When I’m guiding the thread through the various twists and turns on the machine, the thread always…I repeat…always gets tangled up. It winds itself around my fingers like a snake and refuses to let go.  After cursing it and every one of its ancestor spools of thread, I finally get the thread in the proper places and I’m ready to sew. This is where we’ll pick up the story of my sewing adventure on Saturday.  I had decided to sew Halloween bandanas for the boys. How cute would pictures be, of the two of them posing in matching bandanas? That was my first mistake…thinking Remy would pose in a bandana.  But I digress…let’s go back to the sewing process.  I had set up the machine, plugged it in, threaded it, pinned the two pieces of fabric together and placed it under the foot of the machine. The threaded needle sat poised in mid-air, waiting to be plunged into the material. I stepped on the pedal…nothing. Stepped on the pedal again..harder this time..nothing.  Checked the plug…Remy had it in his mouth.  Took the plug away from Remy, plugged it into the wall…gave him a toy to play with.  OK..he’s busy, Rufus is sleeping…here we go.   I take my place in front of the machine… step on the pedal…nothing….step harder on the pedal…..nothing. Check plug..it’s in the wall..what the heck???? Oops..turn on machine! OK, now we’re cooking. I step on the pedal…..the machine springs to life, whirring…the needle goes up and down…the machine keeps whirring…then it starts  chugging….then CLUNK. That can’t be a good noise. The needle stops going up and down and just sits stubbornly in the material refusing to budge.  A big hunk of material has been sucked down into the dark hole under the machine. I open the little compartment under the machine and peer inside. There is a matrix of thread wrapped around and around all the inner workings of the machine. I start to cut it away, piece by piece. It’s slow and tedious work but eventually I get it all out. I retrieve that silly little bobbin (who came up with such a cute name for such a demonic little item?) from the place it has come to rest way at the back of the machine and stick it back in the hole in which it belongs.  The thread on the top of the machine has snapped off so I have to re-thread that too. Ok it’s all done and we’re ready to go again…I place the fabric back under the foot, lower said foot and…..Rufus is at the door, with a piece of fabric hanging out of his mouth and Remy is leaping up at him trying to get it away from him. I take the fabric away and let them both out. I take my seat in front of the sewing machine once again…I lean forward ready to guide the material…..I step on the pedal and the machine springs to life…and promptly eats the material again. At this point I look out the window to see the boys gleefully humping each other in the back yard, while the neighbour’s three year old son watches.  They’re busy…back to the sewing machine I go, determined to get these bandanas sewn so I can prove to myself and my grade 7 Home Ec teacher who told me she was going to place a warning label on every sewing machine ever made so I was not allowed to step near another one again as long as I live , that I can do this. I cut away the matrix of thread again, re-thread the machine, cut off the ragged material that had been sucked into the machine and get ready to start again. The machine springs to life as I step on the pedal…here we go..the fabric slides along as the needle goes up and down…..I’m sewing..I’m actually sewing.  My mother would be proud…Nana is watching over me from Heaven and she is proud. I am jubilant. My celebration is short lived. I hear a cackle..the machine is taunting me…it quickly gobbles up the material yet again. This time it sucks such a big piece of material into the hole that the entire machine grinds to a halt, shudders and shuts itself off.  I think this is the machine’s way of telling me it’s over. I step away from the machine and get out the glue.

Part Two tomorrow…The Photo Shoot