I Can't Sew

In middle school we took "Life Skills" instead of "Home Economics." Call it what you want, it still was a class about cooking and crafting. And our crafting involved using a sewing machine to create a drawstring bag. It was the most horrible week of my life.

I made my bag out of this fabulous Bugs Bunny basketball fabric, which, delightfully, someone is currently selling on Etsy. I was excited about the project, but my ambition quickly fizzled when every step turned into the most difficult task I have ever faced. I'm not sure what it was. I had trouble just cutting the fabric properly. And threading the bobbin and needle? Forget it. In school (excluding gym, of course), I had always churned out nothing but exceptional work, and so sewing this god-forsaken bag turned into a nightmare because I was not good at all. I had to put in extra time after class to finish it, and I'm sure tears were involved. When I finally finished the stupid thing I felt no sense of accomplishment. I was relieved to be rid of the sewing machine, and I didn't touch another one for seventeen years.

My husband, on the other hand, can sew. Whenever I mention the failed drawstring bag, he puffs his chest and tells the story of how in his home ec class, he sewed not a lowly drawstring bag, but a fancy duffle bag, and his teacher thought it was the most perfect specimen of sewmanship she had ever seen. A few years ago I bought him a sewing machine for Christmas. He's only had the chance to sew a few things with it, including this stellar tapestry that now hangs above my desk.

I had figured enough time had passed that perhaps I could try to form a new relationship with the sewing machine. So one day I tried to sew the ends of a small strip of fabric together, and the result: disaster. The thread kept getting tangled and turning into a big clumpy mess. I don't know what I was doing wrong. Bill's theory is that I'm being too timid with the machine, that I have to show it who's boss. I don't know. I had great ambitions of using the sewing machine to create things, but now I think I'll just stick to hand sewing.

My husband, on the other hand, decided to make curtains for our new apartment. We usually paint our apartments in bold colors but this time decided to save time and instead create accents of color through curtains. Bill had an easy go of it. I didn't even try to help. Well, I did cut the fabric for some of the tie-backs. And of course I couldn't even do that correctly; I cut the strips of fabric too small. One thing I was successful at in this entire process was nailing the tie-backs into the wall. I'm not bad with a hammer and a nail. Well, actually, that's not true. If the hammer is to big and heavy it frightens me, and 25% of the time I try to hammer a nail I bend it. Oh, well. DIY isn't my greatest forte. That's what Bill is for.