Stitching One Together

 

This story is about sewing, and the image above will become relevant as you read on. 

Sewing by hand is becoming a lost art, and I'll be damned if I let it go without a fight. The dance with needle and thread has impacted me in many ways, and I'm grateful to the those who taught me how to replace a button... attach a patch... set a hem... repair a rip.

It's a quiet and singular activity that, much like ironing, can push a certain button in certain people. I like to iron too, but I'm weird that way.

Aunt Peggy

During Grade school, my younger brother and I lived with Aunt Peggy and Uncle Tony while Dad worked hard to create a new space for his two young sons. This is a common arrangement in many families, yet the benefits of that time so long ago are still with me.

To help ends meet, Peggy took in laundry and ironing work, and her small home was always filled with clothes. Regular walking trips to the laundromat were a part of my days from 2nd to 5th Grade, and the rules for using a laundromat were burned into my hard drive at an early age. 

After school, I'd sit and watch her iron and learned how to do it (I'm still an Ironing God). She also taught me the basics of hand-sewing, and sometimes she'd let me sew missing buttons onto a dress shirt before it was starched, ironed and hung, ready for pick-up. I was a weird kid, too.

Father Sews Best

My Dad is a jack-of-all-trades, so it wasn't a surprise that he was also pretty good with a sewing machine. When I landed the role of 'The Peddler' in my Junior High School production of 'Oklahoma!' during the 7th Grade, he figured out how to use Grandma's ancient machine to fashion a sporty suit coat out of leftover material scraps. He fabricated the coat while I hovered around him, watching it come together. I told everyone "My DAD made this coat!!"

During my Boy Scout years, Dad was heavily involved with (among many other things) starting an Indian dance team for our local Order of the Arrow chapter. With me at his elbow, he fabricated the entire costume I wore for several years at performances all over Southern California. He also sewed-up and decorated the full-sized 'tipi' seen in the image above, which our team used at Camporees and pow-wows. My Dad RULES.

Camping Capitalism

The image above was taken at Holt Scout Ranch (a.k.a. Camp Cedar Canyon), located in the San Bernardino (CA) mountains. During the summer of 1970, I was a Summer Camp Junior Staffer there and lived at camp for over two months on my own. 

Scout Troops would arrive at camp on Sundays for a week of outdoor activities, campcraft classes and fun, departing on the following Saturday. As a Junior Counselor, I conducted First Aid classes and helped the senior staffers to keep things humming. I washed a LOT of dishes in the Mess Hall.

My sewing skills came in handy. Workers in the Camp Store (pictured at left above) knew I could sew and would send visiting Scouts that needed emergency clothing repairs to find me. 

My typical charge was $1 per repair, and Scouts would gladly pay me to fix their torn clothes, sew a newly-earned merit badge onto their sash, or attach an official Camp badge on their Red wool Scout jacket. I always had extra cash to spend at the camp store.

The really cool part was that camp staff lived in large individual tents on raised wooden platforms, with electricity! I had a portable record player, an incense burner and my 'Easy Rider' poster in there. Many evenings found me sewing by lantern light, blasting 'Inagaddadavida' into the surrounding forest.

Stitching One Together

I've been lucky to have spent quality time in fast cars on different kinds of race tracks. During my first session at the Jim Russell Racing Driver's School in Sonoma (CA), I unlearned as much as I learned about car control.

In the first classroom day, the instructor kept saying: "The goal is to stitch together a good lap, and then do it over and over again." 

This relates perfectly to sewing, and the title of this story.

In motorsports, every turn is another opportunity to screw up the lap. When producing autocross-style tire testing events, I'd do a track walk with the participants, stopping at the entrance of each turn to recommend where the car should be placed, when to brake, when begin the turn and when to accelerate out of the turn. My favorite advice (Thanks, Mark Richter!) was, "Anyone can drive fast INTO a corner.  The secret is being able to drive fast OUT of a corner."

Note: watch this vid on 'full-screen' It'll be worth it.

(Not me.)

Anyone who sews knows that every stitch is vital to the integrity of the finished product. A missed or incorrect stitch can weaken the whole, with failure as a likely result. In the autocross video above, each cone turn is another chance to mess up the lap, and the driver messes up a few of them.  He's trying to 'stitch one together'... to take each turn just right to keep up his speed and momentum, thus achieving a quick elapsed time.

When I'm patching a pair of jeans, I make double-doggone-sure every stitch is where it needs to be so the repair doesn't fail and the patch stays where it's supposed to. In motorsports and sewing, the goal is to make every stitch count.

Heart-shaped Box

The sewing kit shown above is the reason I was inspired to write this essay. It belonged to The Artist's Grandmother Lila, and I loved her dearly. When she passed many years ago, we inherited both her sewing machine and this sewing kit, which I use all the time.

When I sit down and open the lid to repair a piece of clothing, Lila's with me. When I use a needle or thread or scissors or thimble or stitch ripper, it's like I'm communing with her across time and space. Holding those precious things in my hand gives me joy for having known and loved Lila so much, and I think about her all the time, even when I'm not sewing.

The vintage plastic case is now old and fragile, and my head was filled with slow-motion visions of the handle breaking and the kit crashing to the ground, exploding into a thousand pieces. I taped down the handle and cradle it in my arms when carrying it.

*************************************************************************

Sewing isn't for everyone. Neither is ironing. Both are becoming irrelevant, but I dinna care. I get satisfaction from doing both and will continue until I'm no longer able. Whatever happens to Lila's sewing kit when I depart this mortal coil is of no consequence because I won't know. I hope that another person who loves the intricacies of sewing will see the kit as I have: as a time machine... an homage to human skill and ingenuity... as a way to help their favorite jeans last just a little bit longer. 

(again, full screen).

(Definitely not me.)

Images of Peddler coat, Indian costume, summer camp and sewing box by the Author, all other images Thanks to GoogleImages; All videos Thanks to YouTube.