I love hand-sewing, and I always have–ever since I was a little girl. I also love mending. It makes such good sense, imparts calm, gives you a pleasant sense of accomplishment, and is something nice to do for your family. That said, it’s been a mystery why, these past few months, the family “to-mend” pile has been growing high while I avoid it like the plague. Last week Claire said, “Mom, you still haven’t fixed my winter coat, and now it’s almost June.” It’s true. There’s a ripped seem under the arm, a cinch to stitch up, but three months after discovering the tear, the stitches haven’t happened. Why? Deciding to break through the mysterious mending ennui and just do it, I pulled out my handsewing box, and I think I discovered the psychological culprit.
The box was a mess. I couldn’t find anything I wanted, and every time I tried to pick out a needle, or pin, or my beautiful little crane-shaped embroidery scissors, they would be attached to everything else in the box by a multi-colored tangle of thread. Stressful. So in the spirit of “tidiness breeds inspiration” I took five minutes and cleaned it up. Entropy is a physical law, so it is normal that a handsewing box will collect things over time that belong elsewhere: bobbins for the machine, elastic, bits of ribbon, ends of cloth, and many many spools of thread–all of these have their proper place in the sewing area, but a good mending basket should have just the essentials. The weirdest thing I found in my cluttered box was this group of five flicker feathers. Where did they come from? You know it’s time to clean up your basket when pieces of animal start turning up.
The tidy box looks so inviting! I was actually thrilled when Tom came to me this morning with pants that needed a button. Of course it won’t stay this perfect, but I DO plan to spend a few minutes every month to put it back in good stead.
My sewing basket is a plastic fishing tackle box I got at a yard sale for 25 cents when I was in college (new with the tags on–no fish-egg slime). It’s perfect. It holds an assorment of needles and pins, a few basic thread colors (yes, in our house magenta is a “basic”– and sometimes it’s fun to mend in a contrasting thread color), a tape measure, chalk and a fabric pen for marking, a stash of safety pins, a small collection of buttons (more buttons live in a big button jar by the sewing machine), my good embroidery scissors and fabric shears, snaps and hooks-and-eyes, tape measure, seam ripper, and thimble.
Years ago I was sitting in my great-aunt Irene’s living room in Iowa, both of us with sewing in our laps. She said, “I don’t know how you sew without a thimble, Lyanda. If you start, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without one.” I have tried and tried, but I cannot sew nimbly with a thimble on my finger. I do, however, use it frequently for pressing needles through thick fabric.
My three favorite things in the box:
1) The seam ripper. It’s useful of course, but what I really like is that I’ve had this same little orange plastic seam ripper since my junior high home economics class. That happens sometimes.
2) The little crane-shaped embroidery scissors. They are beautiful and incredibly sharp. They delight me every time I use them.
3) My pin cushion. It was made by my mother when she was a Brownie, and is filled with sawdust that sometimes escapes.
I encourage everyone to make up a little box or jar to keep mending supplies at-the-ready. You don’t need all the stuff in my box, just a little thread, scissors, pins and needles, all kept in one place–a canning jar or basket or cardboard box. That’s all it takes to set yourself up for a lovely, calming,
practical art. Think of all the things we can save from the out-box with just a little bit of care and thread.
For inspiration and how-to, see my previous Pretty Patching post. Also Craftzine’s Mending Month recap from a few years back.
I don’t know about y’all, but this weather has totally messed with my gardening plans. The broccoli was supposed to be grown and eaten in time for the tomatoes to be planted. But this spring and early summer, even the broccoli took its time coming to fruition, and was not ready by tomato-time. Where would the tomatoes go? I decided to just plant them in the middle of the broccoli, eat the broccoli whenever it decided to show itself, and remove the plants in time for the tomatoes to grow large. Gardening often requires a creative abandoning of the best-laid plans.
So yes, we were eating the winter vegetable, broccoli, in early July. It was tasty and sweet. The broccoli’s leafy plants are gone now, and all we need is some sun to shine on the other poor, confused vegetables. And sun or no (today’s prediction?–July 15th?–high of 62, and cloudy…) our spirits lift with the blossoming of the first sunflower.
