A Stitch in Time

When I was young I was constantly amazed at what my mother could do. Her fingers were nimble and it seemed to me she could do magical things with her hands. As I have mentioned a number of times in this blog,  my formative years (ages four to nine) were spent in Paraguay under conditions that make Little House on the Prairie look like a piece of cake. I'm sure Mom sometimes wondered if our family hadn't jumped from the frying pan into the fire, as she drew water from our well, scrubbed all our clothes by hand, mourned the destruction of crops by ferocious grasshoppers, baked and cooked all our food in a clay oven or over an open fire, and birthed two more babies.

My mother loved clothes and she enjoyed sewing. She had taken a seamstress-training course while still in Ukraine, just before she got married. Our village in Paraguay had one treadle sewing machine (probably donated by MCC) and everyone in the village took a turn at using it for a couple of weeks at a time. Mom usually sewed in the evenings, after the daily chore of caring for five children was done and we were all in bed. However, we had no electricity and she sewed by the light of a wick soaked in petroleum. Usually she ripped apart used clothing sent to us by MCC and remade clothes to fit us all.

The picture above was taken in Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, where we spent several months waiting for our visas and passports so we could emigrate to Canada. My mother sewed every stitch of clothing we are wearing, including the hand-embroidered flowers on my dress (I'm behind my mother, second from the right).

Because she  loved to sew, my mother wanted me to learn the skill as well. When I started school at age seven, our mothers decided that the little girls would have a sewing class one afternoon a week, taught by one of the young women in the village. Again, MCC had donated embroidery floss, and the women bleached flour bags for us to use in order to learn to make the different stitches. To hold my embroidery floss, Mom gave me a special little silk bag with gold draw strings and colorful sequins that Dad had picked up in Germany in exchange for cigarettes. It was beautiful, and I was excited as I trudged off to the one-room schoolhouse in the late afternoons.

Unfortunately, my experience in the sewing class was not that "beautiful." My thread tangled and knotted, my material bunched up in the wrong places, my hands were too sweaty to hold the needle properly, and I didn't know how to do the stitches. I much preferred the morning classes where we learned to read, write, recite, and sing. Worst of all, I felt that I disappointed my mother! 

I was not allowed to skip those sewing classes and they were the bane of my existence! When we came to Canada Mom insisted that my sister and I spend one hour a week embroidering. She provided the tea towels and we ironed on the patterns and stitched them. I did not enjoy that hour and was always happy when it was over.

Later, when I was in high school, we learned to use the sewing machine in home economics class. I was actually afraid to use it and figured out a clever way to stay away from it during class. We were also required do a handicraft and so I usually worked on an embroidery sampler during class (I had finally mastered that skill!). Then I would take my sewing machine project home and begged my mother to help me do it. She usually ended up sewing it for me, as both of us got impatient with each other!

Interestingly enough, when I left home to go to Africa shortly after I got married, I took up sewing. There were no clothing stores in the provincial town of Kikwit (Zaïre, now DR Congo) where we lived. I bought patterns before we left home and there was a period of time where I sewed the children's clothes and quite liked it. I also found that I enjoyed embroidery as a hobby, especially since there wasn't much of a social outlet for me. 

When we returned to Canada I began my university studies and did not have time for sewing projects. However, once the grandchildren came along, I found myself returning to my old hobby, by embroidering a crib quilt for each of them. I'm working on my eighth one right now. I also made one for my middle daughter at her request (above). She picked the pattern and asked me to sew tabs on it so she could hang it on the wall. That quilt was particularly challenging as it required every kind of stitch I had ever learned. I put it aside for quite a while. Recently one of my granddaughters, eleven-year-old Kathryn, found it as she was rummaging through my sewing project drawer and reminded me that I needed to finish it. Electronics had taken over my spare time!

I made a butterfly quilt for one of my grandsons that required some hand quilting, which became a family project. We took it to our son-in-law's grandmother who had a quilting frame set up in her living room. Even Hardy helped quilt it!

I stitched this counted-cross stitch for my parents' 50th anniversary in 1990. It now hangs in our home and reminds me of my Mom's perseverance, even in teaching a stubborn and impatient little girl something she later valued and enjoyed.