Sew sew

8am and it's a bad morning already. A bad night's sleep thanks to the new possum in the roof, gamboling in the space above our bed. (Or maybe it's a giant rat up there - oh, so much worse.) Girls up before sunrise, which in summer is awfully early. A plod with the dogs - no joy in the birds and the light, today. Al's in Hobart until tomorrow, so there's no-one to step in at 5.30 pm to take over the Inspector Gadget role play that is eating up my days and my soul. Bubbling anxiety over work. The girls at me, at me, atmeatmeatme from the moment I wake up, jostling over who stands next to me while I do a poo, eat a muffin, stare into space. All this culminating in my shrieking, shrieking at them as they fight over who gets to crawl under a particular but in no way distinguished dining chair. Shrieking 'Oh my god, would you just STOP, the two of you. Fighting before 7.30 in the morning: it's a disgrace. Stop'. Storming out (with my coffee - I wasn't so angry I forgot my coffee).

And then my rehabilitation, in the eyes of the girls and myself, as I mend a Barbie dress (Barbies, yes, another story for another day). I've never valued my sewing skills, which are limited and always end in shoddy bits and pieces. But oh, the magic in the eyes of the girls. Statistical analysis impresses them not all; my working knowledge of half a dozen computer programs is irrelevant, save that it lets me find cool stuff for them to watch on youtube. Domestically, I leave them cold: I vacuum while they watch T.V. and I only ever cook food that is disgusting, stinky and yukky. But sewing up a a shiny yellow dress with blue thread - that is the work of a domestic goddess of the most glamorous kind.

A bad morning takes a turn for the better.

Straight line sewing

Al bought me a sewing machine for Christmas last year (at my request, not in a fit of 1950s patriarchal present buying bastardry), and I had visions of learning to run up idiosyncratic and stylish things for myself and the girls while on mat. leave. It didn't happen and my confidence and motivation slowly drained away. It doesn't help that I don't really care about sewing, I just want to buy beautiful fabrics on the internet and collect retro pillowcases from op shops. I packed away my sewing machine so it didn't stand as a silent reminder of yet another thing I'd failed to do.

But my friend Tamsin gave me a pep talk the other day. She sews but only in straight lines, and she makes lovely, lovely things. So I dragged everything out, found an old skirt pattern for a little girl in my Grammy's stuff (indeed, I think she made it for me when I was tiny) and then figured it's all just common sense and spatial concepts, like a jigsaw. And I did it - I made a skirt. Behold, its glory.


It's very, very wonky, with not much straight line sewing at all. But since Lu never stands still it doesn't matter - it passes as a skirt from the distance.


Pehaps the best thing about the whole process is learning a new skill (except I haven't really learned much, and I'm not at a level to be described as 'skill'). I'm really good at some things and I just keep getting better at them; it's rare to master something new. It's a bit confronting too, because I don't like being a novice, I like to be if not perfect then pretty damn good. In sewing I am neither.

However, I picked up a few things, and I'm listing them here for future reference:

* Ironing paper patterns and materials is probably not just being overly-pernickity
* It's important to know where all pins are at all times
* Straight seams come from straight cutting
* Blunt nail scissors don't facilitate straight cutting

Armed with this knowledge, I'm about to embark on a bag for the deli shopping. I expect to open a store on Etsy by the weekend, and very soon shall be making huge amounts of money selling my wares.