Learning How to Sew on Saturdays in the Winter
When I was in my preteens my grandmother taught sewing on Saturday mornings during the winter in my mother's fabric shop which was attached to our home. That's where I learned about darts and inseams; marking and pinning patterns and secrets of how to cut the patterns out. I discovered how some materials such as silks and velvets are harder to sew than others like cottons and rayon. While it took me forever to trim a pattern, pin it to the fabric, and cut it out, my grandmother did it in lightning speed. On went the pins and soon, off they came. That's the manner in which she sewed, too. And when she wasn't the instructor, she'd be at her little black Singer sewing machine pumping the foot pedal and turning out one item after another. This instructor never needed a pattern back home in her sewing room. She had the eye for her artform and those of us lucky enough to be in her family, benefited. When you have the eye-the imagination, the creativity is the driving for...