I may have mentioned previously how influential my mother was when I first learned to sew. She was the perfect combination of patience and uncompromising perfectionism. She explained carefully, without rushing. She comforted me when I made painful mistakes (and none of us will EVER forget the day I set plaid sleeves into a blouse, matched those plaids meticulously, topstitched two rows around the armscyes of each, only to discover I’d put the sleeves in the WRONG armscyes . . .)
She taught me well. But there was no coddling when I wasn’t hard enough on myself. For that, there was only quiet wisdom.
ME: It’s a little messy on the inside, but no one can see it from the outside.
MOM: You’ll see it.
I pouted. A lot.
ME: What if I don’t care? It doesn’t even show. Nobody will know it’s there.
MOM: You’ll know.
I pouted some more. I set the sewing aside. I read a book . . . or tried to. But her words just hung there, in a way that couldn’t be ignored.
Me: Will you be mad if I don’t fix it?
MOM: No. It’s not my dress.
I felt hopeful for the first time in an hour. She wouldn’t make me redo it! I had won! And then came her final, devastating words.
MOM: It’s up to you what you do. But I know what I would do.
Well. The only correct response was to dig out the seam ripper and get it over with. I wasn’t happy about this. And I couldn’t even blame it on her! Somehow, she’d made me choose this torture for myself!
And I love her for it.
Because what she knew that I didn’t, yet, is that I’m exactly like her. It would matter to me. And because I learned this at an early age, I don’t even think about giving in to sloppiness anymore. Far from it.
Instead I pause to enjoy the insides of things, where no raw edges flaunt their raggedness, where no knots show, where every thread has been run between layers and clipped off so not even a stray end can be seen.
It doesn’t matter if nobody sees it.
It matters that I see it.
And I’m deeply satisfied with what I see.
To watch Hattie’s wardrobe grow, click HERE.
To follow along with just her plaid trimmed jumper project, click HERE.