Today is my mom’s birthday, and this post is in her honor.
My mom is an amazing seamstress. In high school she made beautiful evening gowns and won State 4-H contests. No one could beat her. Desperate to win first place, a girl once drugged my mom before she modeled her evening gown before the judges. Though it was a miracle she was even coherent, my mom won. That is how good she is. Growing up, she and my Grandma outfitted my brother and sister and me with clothing they had sewed.
During my late elementary years, my best friends Tama Walley and Donna Person wore clothes from Dillard’s and other top department stores, and I longed to do the same. So, no matter how perfectly finished, I took it upon myself to criticize every clothing item that my mom or Grandma ever made for me. There were always sleeves that were too puffy, a collar too small, or buttons I didn’t like (Basically, I was just a congenial, grateful, content, and easy-to-get-along-with sixth grader.)
Our church middle school choir musical, “Down by the Creek Bank” was coming, and all the girls were talking about what overalls we planned to wear for the production. My friend Donna’s mom found some at Dillard’s that had a pocket on the front with a gold stitching design that I thought was out of this world. “I need a pair of those overalls!” I said. My Dad was a minister of music on a church staff and my mom was a homemaker. We couldn’t afford to spend our entire month’s clothes budget on one pair of overalls. But my mom told me she would be happy to make me some that were similar for a fraction of the cost if I wanted to be a part of the process.
She took me to the fabric store so I could pick out just the type of denim I wanted. She had me pick out a pattern while we were there. “You will be happy with these overalls made of this material and stitched with this thread?” she asked. “Great.” Then she made me sit by her side as she sewed, and approve every part of the overall making process. She took the denim strips and ironed them to be straps. “Will you be happy with this width? Would you like me to do double stitching down each side or single? And you will be happy with that?” I sat there for who knows how many painstaking hours over a few days, answering her questions about exactly how I wanted everything designed.
I never once complained about anything she or Grandma sewed for me from that day forward.
Thanks, Mom, for wringing out my wrongs.