The Strange Allure of Sewing Straight Lines

Spools 02 (Photo credit: sarabeephoto)

I set out on this period of adventure with this idea that I’d like to learn to do and make some new things. Physical things, I mean: things I build, assemble, or fabricate, and that result in a concrete product.

Recently I’ve been working on sewing. My mom taught me to use her sewing machine sometime around the time I graduated from college. I made myself a jumper, felt a small sense of accomplishment, and that was about it. In the years since, I’ve never had much urge to sew anything, certainly not enough to motivate me to get a machine, figure out where to keep it, and get in enough practice to actually remember how to use it the once every 5 years or so an idea gets hold of me.

The ideas I would get weren’t very Martha Stewart-ish. They definitely weren’t Project Runway. (Well, I shouldn’t say that, really, because I’ve never seen Project Runway. But I don’t have the impression that they make things out of old tablecloths, so that lets me out.)  I would get fixated on a stained or holey tablecloth seen at a yard sale and wanting to be able to cut it up and turn the good bits into napkins or something. Or, I’d wish I could darn the holes in my socks. Small projects, silly even, but ones that would make me feel like I’d used things well or restored some order to my little corner of the world.

Now I find myself living in a house with three sewing machines, some wonderfully soft–but torn–cotton sheets, and a shortage of kitchen towels. It seemed like an opportunity.

There’s a kind of meditative quality to sewing straight lines that I’m finding very relaxing right now. True, my hems aren’t all that straight yet, but they’re getting there. And I’m wishing I had even more old sheets to cut up.

Goals Report

Wikipedia (Photo credit: Octavio Rojas)

Popping in quickly to report progress on my goals from last week.

Oh, wait. You didn’t know I had goals, did you? Because I never got around to writing that post except in my head. (While running.  Which is a good time to think, but not a good time to type.)

No matter. Fortunately, catching up on blogging wasn’t one of my goals for last week.

No, I decided that I was drifting into a funk in part because I kept putting off some of the interesting things I wanted to do while underemployed until after I had finished all the things I should do.  I’ve always been an eat-your-vegetables-first kind of girl. But that approach wasn’t doing much for my spirits, or for learning, lately.

I resolved that in addition to doing my taxes last week, I would make tangible progress towards two different projects I had identified for myself. And, in fact, I did.

• I reacquainted myself with the basics of machine sewing & whipped up a drawstring bag and a couple of kitchen towels.
• Familiarized myself with Wikipedia editing procedures and made first steps towards a project to enlist the Charlotte History Roundtable to help clean up the entry on Charlotte history before the DNC madness descends on our city in earnest.

This week is a particularly busy one, so I’m setting the more modest goal simply to make more progress on one of those things.  Grandma Meyer’s 30 year old Bernina Nova quit working about 3/4 of the way through hemming the second tea towel, so the smart money is on Wikipedia.

True Confessions

I’ve had a few weeks of wanting to pull into my shell and hide from the world recently. The phone rings and I find myself hoping it’s not for me. I see someone I know briefly, in a public place, and am secretly relieved when they don’t notice me.

To be clear, this has nothing to do with the specific people involved. I enjoy talking to friends on the phone and I mostly enjoy any of the people I might run into in public. It’s just that interacting feels like it takes a lot of energy right now, especially if I’m taken by surprise. My ability to go from 0 to full-on sociability in 10 seconds is really lacking.

If you’re an introvert, this may sound familiar to you. I recognize it as an amplification of my normal introvert tendencies, something that just happens sometimes, especially if I’m tired or feeling a bit blue.

While I was in this mode, a very nice person did a very nice thing for me, passing along Versatile Blogger Award. Per the instructions, I was encouraged to post seven little-known informational tidbits about myself, and then pass the award on to seven others.

Now I know these kinds of awards are a bit of a longstanding blogging institution and a completely friendly way of encouraging new people and bringing attention to their blogs. But, I also have a long-standing aversion to — and semi-official policy against — anything that involves passing a set of instructions on to five, or seven, or ten different people. And while I was trying to reconcile these two contradictory things I.  just.   kind   of.   froze. Mix in a couple of bad dreams about it, let stand for a few days while preoccupied with something else, and behold: one case of very solid writers block and a craven desire to avoid the blog altogether.

I’m going to attempt to get out of this fix simply by publicly admitting it and moving on. While sidestepping official participation in the award protocol, I plan to write an upcoming post on things you may not know about me. And I resolve to make more regular efforts to direct your attention to other blogs and bloggers you might enjoy, but I’m going to do it in my own way.

Stay tuned: hopefully I’ll have more to say in the future than I have in the past few weeks.