The Sewing Machine

The sewing machine sets on the dining room table, where I pass by several times a day.  We are getting acquainted.  I have had "the machine" for several years, but have yet to sew a stitch on it.  My sister, an expert seamstress and quilter, gave it to me as kind of a long term loan many years ago.  I hauled it from her house in Texas to mine in Oklahoma, then moved it to Colorado, to Virginia and now back to Colorado.  The last time I sewed on any machine was probably 40+ years ago - maybe 7th grade or maybe earlier.  I sewed so I could earn my sewing badge in Girl Scouts.  I know one of my projects was a three arm-hole dress.  Does anyone remember those? Tells you a lot about my fashion sense (or lack thereof).  As soon as I earned the badge, I was done with sewing and back outside playing basketball. I have done hand mending and sewn on a few buttons since then, but absolutely nothing with a machine.  It seems like now it would be handy to be able to do some bigger mending jobs.  I have no higher sewing aspirations than that.  I did buy thread over the weekend.  Now I have to actually sit down at "the machine" and figure out the bobbin thing and do some sewing.  My mind wanders back to my childhood and memories of my Mom.  She too was an expert seamstress.  She made clothes for us and did all the mending.  As with many things, I have a much greater appreciation of all that she did for us, now, when it is too late to tell her.  She worked full-time much of my childhood and yet did all the laundry, cooking and a lot of sewing for us.  I can remember getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and there she was in the laundry/sewing room, folding clothes or working on some sewing project. I am glad those type of expectations have not been placed on me.  I will make "the machine" my friend and I will relearn how to sew well enough to handle our mending.  I will pay Aunt Julie to make Emma's Halloween costume this year.  I would still rather be outside playing basketball.  And I am okay with that.