The Sewing Machine

On a recent afternoon, I opened up my sewing machine to repair my husband’s jeans. I noticed immediately that the stitching didn’t look right. Pulling out my well-worn instruction manual for the Model 1351 Zigzag Sewing Machine, I flipped through the pages to find the trouble-shooting guide. There, on the memo page, were the measurements of my daughters, my son, my sister, and me. The writing is the recognizable script of my mother, recording our sizes as they were the last time she held this manual in her hands in 1980.

Like a freeze-frame from a movie, I remembered the sight of my mother hunched low over her sewing machine as she deftly maneuvering fabrics under the needle, generating clothing for my sister and me.

For all of my childhood, my mother owned a sewing machine. Her first was a Christmas present from my dad. Purchased in the 1950’s, it was made of steel and finished in bright blue with chrome trim. It folded down neatly into a mahogany cabinet with Chippendale-style pull on the front door. Since our ranch-style home had no rooms to spare for only sewing, her sewing machine substituted as decorative surface in our living room usually with a lamp or flower arrangement of seasonal kind on top of its closed lid. 

I don’t recall Mom ever telling me who taught her to sew. Her mother died when she was very young. Her father abandoned her and her two younger brothers. Their grandmother raised them. Mom grew up industrial strength. As poor farmers deep in the south, they struggled for day to day existence. Perhaps my great-grandmother shared her skills with her skinny little granddaughter. I am confident my mother learned more from necessity than for the sake of a hobby.

However it happened, I know this...she made some of the most beautiful clothes that my sister and I ever wore. I’m certain she completed other garments prior to my “remembering,” but the first outfit I can recall was a skirt with a matching vest. The fabric was a loose weave, burlap-y kind of texture with a color of deep green moss with flecks of rust and gold. I loved the feel and the smell of the fabric. My mother starched and ironed the bright white cotton blouse that I wore underneath so that it was crisp and sharp. As a fourth-grader, I felt as sophisticated as a nine-year old can get when I wore that outfit.

Through our school years, she continually turned out garments for us, always in rich fabrics and fashionable styles. Every year of school, there were many pieces, but always one memorable. In fifth grade, a blue plaid wool kilt; in sixth grade, my grade school graduation outfit—a green gingham checked shirtwaist dress with full gathered skirt; in seventh grade, a luxurious cranberry-colored wool suit for Christmas.

Prom 1966

She made my first prom grown, an empire waist dream of lavender taffeta with a satin bow at the back. I was a princess.

Through those years, I tried my best to emulate her skills with hapless results. With her constructive guidance, a 4-H project of a skirt won a ribbon. Then there was the home economics sewing project in junior high, what our teacher called the Jolly Top. It was just two squares sewed together with openings at neck and side for armholes. Made at school without benefit of Mom’s gentle supervision, I accidentally sewed the neck shut. After I used the seam ripper to open the neckline up and repair it, my efforts earned me a C-. Mom never said a word. With that humiliating failure of a garment, that was the end of my sewing.

After my sister and I married, still using the old blue steel machine with attach-on button-holer, Mom busily sewed sun suits, jumpers, dresses, and pants for her two granddaughters and two grandsons.

Then the unthinkable happened. In June of 1980, Mom was diagnosed with bone cancer. Despite a prognosis that was never optimistic, she barreled on ahead with her life in her usual no-nonsense style.

Chemotherapy was quickly followed by a reality check, when she became too weak to continue her nursing job. To the family’s surprise, as her career closed and her physical capabilities diminished, she bought a brand new sewing machine. 

This piece of equipment was way beyond my mother’s frugal, simple nature.  Encased in a modern pecan cabinet, it zigzagged, made beautiful decorative stitching, sewed the new stretch fabrics, and made buttonholes by simply turning the dial. I was amazed, but had to wonder out loud why she chose to buy this awesome machine now. She emphatically told me that when the time came and she couldn’t walk anymore, she would just sit in her wheelchair and sew for us. To humor her, we all dutifully lined up so she could get our measurements recorded in case we weren’t handy for our custom fittings.

Mom did manage a few things from her wheelchair in her final days, but the sewing machine sat unused. The end of her life closed swiftly.

In the months that followed her death, I helped dad sort clothes and go through drawers, putting away my mother’s life for later reminiscing. Ultimately after all was packed up, the sewing machine remained, still unused. Without really knowing why, I asked my father for permission to take the sewing machine for myself, assuring him that I would care for and love it.

Shortly after, I went to the local five and dime and picked out a simple blouse pattern. In the frugal manner of my mother, I bought some inexpensive fabric to construct my first garment. I didn’t want to waste money on something that might not come to fruition. Nevertheless, to my wonder, I read the directions, successfully cut the fabric, and sewed the new blouse in less than four hours. A miracle occurred! It felt as if as soon as I opened the machine, the spirit of my mother entered me and I was granted the magical skill level that she had always possessed. My husband came home and observed the new garment; he asked suspiciously if I had bought it. He was incredulous when I told him I made it myself.

With the success of the first project, I was encouraged to open myself up to more daring and advanced articles of clothing. Before long, I was making custom jeans for my son with durable double knees, prairie skirts, jumpers, robes, and pajamas. Everything that was fashionable in the ‘80’s for my kids came off of that machine. Through the years, my daughters became princesses too in the prom gowns that were custom fitted by me and fashioned of blue taffeta, chiffon, or pink silk.

The years have flown and my children have children of their own. The fancy sewing machine in the pecan cabinet with the zigzag stitching and turn-the-dial buttonholer is no longer modern, and it doesn’t see much service anymore. 

The DNA of my mother survives on the instruction manual of the 1980 Model 1351 sewing machine with modern pecan cabinet that is capable of making beautiful decorative and zigzag stitching, sewing stretch fabrics, and making buttonholes by simply turning the dial. It also survives on the tidy script and measurements on the memo page. I can touch that page and once again see the determined set of her lips and her life-worn hands guiding the fabric under the needle.

Mom never knew her sewing machine left a legacy carried through to my daughters and granddaughters to their own sewing machines. They too have inherited the knowledge that to create for others at the sewing machine is to love. 

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