Lindcraft Angel

I've just returned from Lindcraft. I met an Angel; an elderly man with a European accent who was hovering near the thimbles when I asked a shop assistant for help with sewing machine needles.

"This would be the best person to ask," she said cheerfully. He was wonderful. He helped me get the right needles, he told me the reasons why the cotton can loop underneath the fabric. He told me to ask God for help when I sew, to feel happy when I sit down to sew.

"I'm such a beginner," I said. I didn't say I was also such an atheist.

Let the people have their God, I thought.

But I do need all the help I can get, I thought after that, wondering.

No, I told myself. Don't be a using hypocrite. You can't just borrow Him when you want. When you need to.

But that's what other people do. They rush to church when tragedy strikes, isn't this the same sort of thing?

No. They are believers anyway.

They're not seeking comfort in the beauty of the architecture? The music? The words of a wise preacher?

Oh shut up.

*

I wanted to cling to the man, ask if he could adopt me and make me his acolyte, even though I think I'm the wrong gender for acolyte-ism, and probably a few decades too old. I wanted to ask if he gave lessons, did he have a card, did he ever sew for anyone famous, what stories does he have, which country did he leave and why? Who knows? He could have been Melbourne's Dior for all I know. Or another old Nazi.

He bought a thimble with an open top - he said they are the best types. He wished me good luck, and to have a wonderful day. I told him he was very kind, and thank you. I didn't want to walk away from him. Did he feel it too? I wonder.

I bought:

- a measuring tape: soft, not a fucking metal builder one which I've been using and which likes to attack me as I'm stretched out on the table, in my most vulnerable positions.

- some fabric scissors.

- some thread snippers.

- a metre metal ruler. Look out.

- some cotton.

- sewing machine needles, pack o' 5.

So I'm all set to go. Again.

Tomorrow is sewing day. Again.

I will practise more on the fabric scraps, which are kind of running out. I will fix my looping thread problem. I will get these curtains done.

Happy Tuesday to you all.

I am not a natural

You know how there are some things that you are a natural at?

I'm a natural eater, writer, gadabout, teacher, cook and imbiber of wine. These are things I think that I do well, with little or no formal training.
Then there are things I am shit at, and no matter the help I get, or the study, the effort, the brain-power that is invested, I am still shit at it.
For me, one of these things is maths. Another is that I find it very hard to read sarcasm, or irony in a face-to-face situation with a person I don't know. This is because I'm naturally gullible and trusting (another "natural ability" of mine) and so I don't pick up on the cues.
Another thing I'm shit at is money. Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm good at spending it, but can't save for the life of me, can't budget, can't understand where it all goes. Connected to this particular anti-talent is my shit abilities at navigating what normal people might find ordinary, every day stuff. Like paying bills, remembering to get milk and understanding why, but why do we have to do things like do tax returns, change light globes and clean the oven. I just want someone else to do all that stuff so I can do the stuff I like. Because the stuff I like is incredibly demanding and time-consuming. And all that other stuff just seems so uninteresting and not "important."
But the thing that I am most shit at in the whole, wide world is sewing. It has been this way forever, I have always been crap at it; in fact it's one area of my life I've shown most consistency. Even the simplest, easiest task that involves needle and thread, I WILL FUCK UP.
Now, I'm not a stupid person. Once I did one of those thingies that told me I could be in MENSA.
But I can't sew.
I know why it is. It's a blend of impatience, lack of skills and bad maths. My genius lies in tangential lines of thinking, being able to find patterns and abstract forms of logic. All the things that maths isn't. I'm not terrible at maths the way some people are, but it's hard for me to visualise things spatially if they are not right in front of me. So this, combined with possibly a kind of sewing-trauma induced phobia means that whenever I try and sew, I fuck it up.
Evidence of avoidance:
When I was at uni the first time, instead of trying to sew a seam that had come undone in my nice cardigan, I used a million little safety pins to pin it up. AND IT WASN'T THE LATE '70s!
Buttons I can manage, but that's taken me thirty years to "master" and I'm sure that a pro would snigger at my buttons.
I just can't sew. I'm hopeless at it, I really am.
Recently I decided to take up my own pants, now we have a sewing machine and all. How hard could it be, I thought. I can do it. I'll just take my time, be logical and work it out properly.
First I tried on the pants, took them up with pins to the length I wanted. And because I'm SMART and I think of all eventualities, I tried them on with really high heels, and then again with flats to get the best length. I double checked. Then, when I went to cut the pants, guess what I did. I moved the pin, which had been holding the make-shift hem in place, let the bottom part of the fabric drop down, and put the pin back in the same place.
WRONG. WRONG. WRONG.
ThankfullyI thought it looked like heaps of material to be cutting off so I didn't cut that much, but even so I could only make a tiny hem rather than an elegant cuff, so basically, I fucked the pants. They are ok, they are wearable, but they are not the hems I wanted and planned.
Then the actual sewing. It was fucked. I used white cotton on tweedy black and beige pants. I was in a state, a lather. But I get so stubborn that I don't stop, I just push on, and I ended up breaking the needle on the machine, finishing by hand IN BLACK COTTON, it was a disaster. This was less than a week ago.
SO, now I have set myself a project to make curtains. And not just easy every-day curtains but lush, bordello-style velvet curtains with a heavy lining.
Luckily, I've had some help. When this project stalled recently, the Lovely Elaine offered her help, so yesterday I went around to her house and in a couple of hours, she made a curtain. I took notes and watched closely and then slipped her a few shekkels to pay for her expertise. Here is the result:

It's not hung yet, obviously. I need to keep it down as my model. Elaine's seams are so straight, she has no loopy threads underneath and it didn't take her a whole day just to cut any of the fabric or lining. She is ace.

Today, all day, I have done the following:
1. changed the needle on the sewing machine.
2. figured out again how to put the bobbin in.
3. cut the lining into the right-sized pieces.
4. cut the other bits of fabric into the right sizes.
5. some test seams on off-cuts of velvet.
6. found it is quite hard to sew a straight line.
7. blushed when I remembered Elaine saying "how hard is it to sew a straight line."
8. found that the stitches are looping, so I've tried adjusting the tension but it doesn't seem to be helping.
9. been very relieved that I had decided to do some test seams on off-cuts instead of just plowing ahead and getting started.
10. blushed again when I remembered my mum saying "And you'll do some testing with fabric, before you start sewing the real thing?" and me saying "I know how to use the sewing machine!!" in an injured voice.
So my initial estimate of taking three times as long as Elaine has been revised. I think it will take me ten times as long as her to do one curtain. Maybe longer.
But for some perverse reason, I am being very determined about all this. I can't say the same for bills and tax and other grown-up things. Maybe because this is creative, I am determined to not let it beat me.
Anyway, stand-by for more updates as I go along this week.