Rickrack Riff Raff

There are many women, and, I suppose, a few men, who actually enjoy sewing.  They love to search for patterns, thread needles and peruse fabrics.  They are comfortable with words like selvage, Butterick and bobbin.

When I was in elementary school, my mother decided to use her summer vacation learning new skills.   She took sewing lessons in an upstairs room on Hillhurst Avenue that was filled with Singers.   The result, perhaps a sewing school’s version of a dissertation or thesis, was a lot of pink and rickrack.  My mother made matching outfits for my sister and me.  

In those days, our home sewing machine was kept in my parents’ bedroom.  Lest I sound utterly ancient, it was the type of machine that was powered by a foot pedal.  At some point the antique disappeared and my mother got an electric Singer.  I can still remember the slightly acrid smell of the oil and the look of the tiny screwdrivers that were to be used for maintenance.

Gradually, my mother’s fascination with sewing clothing for her daughters waned and I don’t think any of us in the family were at a loss for it.  

And then came Thomas Star King Junior High.  Every new female student in the seventh grade had to take sewing, while every male took “shop”---which sounded and seemed so much more interesting. 

The sewing class was filled with a world of new vocabulary terms and lessons on how to thread the machine and needles.   Everyone in the class had to create, make and decorate a “gym bag.”  The purpose of these bags was to take home ones dirty gym clothes at the end of the week and return it clean on the Monday.

I do believe that my gym bag may have had a touch of rickrack.

Based on the expertise—or lack of it—that the gym bags demonstrated, the class was divided into two groups for the next assignment.    The “Special Ed” seamstresses were to make an A-line skirt and the “gifted” ones got to make a much trendier “wrap-around” skirt.

Needless to say, I was in the Special Ed group.  The thought of making, and let alone actually wearing, an A-line skirt was too much to bear.  I broke into tears and was quickly and quietly upgraded to the "wrap-around" crowd. 

My mother took me fabric shopping and I vaguely remember a demin-esque light blue cloth.   I sewed my way through the "wrap-around"—maybe even wore it once—but I learned that sewing was not my thing.  With a language more difficult than the French I was being exposed to for the first time, and concepts slightly more confusing than the ones in my algebra class, I was not sad to see the semester come to an end.  I never even mastered zippers.  Next came the required cooking class.   THAT, I could do.  White sauce and hot chocolate.  But I still envied the boys and their woodshop classes.

The sewing gene definitely got passed to my sister.   The Singer got passed to me.  I used it gingerly while I was pregnant and in major nesting mode.  I wanted my son to have red flannel sheets for his crib.  In those days of the mid 1980’s everything was either pastel, covered with circus motifs or just plain tasteless.  So I hauled out my mother’s Singer—she had since bought a Swiss machine—and attempted to sew.  I made two quilts that, in my mother’s parlance, had the “loving hands at home” look.  The red flannel sheets actually worked.   No one was telling me to give up my day job.

My sister, on the other hand, inherited the sewing gene.  She spent several years working for Vogue Pattern magazine.  She took classes and created the most beautiful and interesting dresses I had ever seen.    I still have one hanging in my closet.   At one point, she toyed with creating her own line of clothing…a sad loss for the fashion world.  Her daughter was by far the best-dressed little girl I have ever seen.  Eat your heart out, Suri.

I know that someday in the future I will pull out the Singer—or the Swiss machine which I now store in a closet—and try to make a pillow cover.  Let’s just hope that no one notices that it doesn’t have a zipper.