The Sewing Machine Debacle

Debacle is such a fun word isn't it?  It's so much better than drama, or situation.  A Debacle  - a combination of trouble, mess, problem that you can't make your way out of.

I digress (another good word) -


My amazing 12 year old daughter who has a heart of gold, and the creative spirit of Martha Stewart (jury still out that she is actually MY kid and was not switched at birth) asked to LEARN to SEW for her birthday gift.  (SEE WHAT I MEAN? as a gift, she asked to learn something.) 

She has the unfortunate pleasure of having a Birthday immediately after Christmas when we are our poorest. Mostly because we do a generous job of playing the Clause's.  For that reason she also had a hard time thinking of a gift she really wanted.

So when she mentioned the sewing thing, I went in the direction of: Have to buy her a Sewing Machine, and she probably was going in the complete opposite direction of: I really want you to pay for sewing lessons at a place where the women all know how to sew and they can actually teach me to make real tangible things.

I did some research and found the machine, a book and a starter kit for a reasonable price.  Thankfully just before I hit the BUY button my sister-in-law mentioned that she had a machine she did not use and it was a step up from the one I was going to buy.  This way we could try it out and I could spend money on the fun stuff like material, patterns, supply case, and pretty much anything she would need to make me a whole new wardrobe.

When I got the machine, I went on-line and printed the manual and put it in a pretty binder.  I set up a little sewing machine station for her and organized the threads, scrap material, some other tools that I have no idea what they are used for and called her down to see her birthday surprise. (Author's note: I am good at ONE category of things - WORKING, so I can organize it all but after that, it's a hopeless DEBACLE.)

We sat down and I told her I would read the instructions and she could get the machine threaded and set up.

Long story short -

She left about an hour in, to "finish homework", and I sat at that godforsaken table with that godforsaken machine and read that godforsaken piece of doo-doo manual for 5 hours!!  At one point my son gave it a try because I forced him to take Home EC in 8th grade and he sewed an apron, but he left after 15 minutes mumbling about You Tube and then the hubby ventured in and said he was going to Google it and watch a You Tube video about it.
WHAT THE........
MEN.

A few days later my daughter's friend came over, sat down, threaded the needled, got the machine to run and they wandered off, while I stood there picking my jaw up off the floor.

A little sewing history:
I took a crochet class in grade school.  For one year our school thought it would be fun to offer extra-curriculars throughout the year.  I took Crochet for three days.  I then moved into the Baton Twirling classes and two days later, I landed in Sign Language 101. I can now proudly sign the alphabet.

My Mom was a hook rug expert.  I even did some hook-rugging for a few years.  I got pretty good at it.  Unfortunately, I was like 8 or 9 and it was the late 70's and hook rugs kind of fell off the list of home trends.

In college during one particular snowy winter my roommates and I tried needle point for 8 hours straight.  Then we drank away our sorrows and forgot everything including what needle point even was.

I used to take my dry cleaning to the sweetest Asian dry cleaning family.  Whenever I was missing a button, they sewed a new one on for me.  Sometimes they didn't match, but I wasn't about to complain.  It beat having to wear my shirts in a unique way for lack of available buttons.

Most recently, I have at least 2 pairs of pants that had to be hemmed.  One hem is held up by Scotch Tape and the other is held up with safety pins.  I couldn't even get the no-sew stuff to work right.

SEW........ I mean  SO, I'm thinking  summer sewing classes are in store for my birthday girl.  I can also make sure she has the cutest sewing center ever.  But beyond that, I have been defeated by a sewing machine.

What I pictured as the kind of supplies she would need

How I pictured her room would look by this summer.

REALITY