Today I bought a new sewing machine. It was on sale and we got a good buy on it, a table to hold it, and a chair to sit in while I sew. We loaded it all into the car, I climbed in, and the tears started falling.

My husband asked what was wrong, and I finally got out, “I miss my mom!”

My mom passed away seven years ago, and it has been a while since something triggered this kind of response, but the sewing machine purchase did.

My mom learned to sew when she was a kid. She hand stitched clothes she’d designed for herself and her younger sister, made her wedding suit years later, and moved on to baby clothes when my sister and I came along. I have the hand-stitched christening gown she made for us, as well as some other delicate baby gowns, and one or two little girl dresses.

As soon as we were old enough, Mom taught my sister and me to sew. I remember (vaguely) sewing miles of seams on old sheets, trying to learn how to sew straight seams. I eventually mastered straight seams (more or less!), and made myself many clothes over the years.

Mom kept sewing and every year under the Christmas tree, we could count on there being some Juanita Clark originals. She often got on a color jag and would make multiple items all in the same color family. She was especially fond of a soft, pale green. Even she would laugh about being stuck on a particular color.

When I got married, Mom made my dress, bridesmaid dresses for my sister and best friend, her dress, my grandmother’s dress, and my aunt’s dress. She wasn’t afraid to tackle anything, and she was such a perfectionist that the inside of her clothes were as neat as the outside. She figured out ways of making seams neater, and she looked at patterns like she did recipes—as starting places, but not anything written in stone.

My folks got me a wedding present—a refurbished Singer sewing machine. Back then, Singer was THE name in sewing machines, and the Stylist they got was a good one. It had some of the new bells and whistles available 40 years ago, and was destined to be a workhorse for me.

I sewed on that machine for myself, and when my kids came along, I sewed outfits for them, at least until they got old enough to want something other than Mom-made clothes.

I didn’t sew a lot for a few years, until my kids were planning their own weddings. I didn’t attempt wedding gowns, but I did make each of them a “brick” quilt, sewing long strips of brick shapes together—a purple-hued one for my son and his bride, and a teal-hued one for my daughter and her husband. And a few years later I made one more brick quilt—this one in greens, for my parents’ 60^th wedding anniversary.

When my kids started having their own kids, that Singer sewing machine got put through its paces again. I made changing pads, baby towels, gowns, suits, hats, and tepees. I made a series of cloth activity books, designing the pages and figuring out how to make the fabric and the machine create what I’d envisioned.

I make one-of-a-kind outfits for all four of my grandkids—overalls for my daughter’s two boys, and dresses for my son’s twin girls. I love sewing for these kids, but all the miles of stitches have taken its toll on that old Singer. After 40 years, it is showing its age.

And so today I bought a new machine—a computerized marvel that leaves my old Singer in the dust if you compare feature to feature, and the new one isn’t even a top-of-the-line version. It is amazing what a sewing machine can do today, and I’m looking forward to putting it to good use for my next round of homemade treasures for my grandkids.

And I’ll say goodbye to my 40-year-old Singer. I hope to find a good home for it somewhere. When I told the clerk today that I was replacing the machine my folks got me as a wedding present, she asked why I didn’t want to just keep it (In addition to the new one) as a memento. And I told her that the best way to honor my mom and her love of sewing that she passed on to me would be to find someone else who is willing to get it fixed up a little, and start making memories on it again.

So buying a new machine today just brought back a flood of sewing-related memories of my mom and what she taught me. I can’t say that I can sew as neatly as she could—I don’t have her patience for such. But I will tackle just about anything, and that attitude I did learn from her. And I learned from her that making gifts for others is a special way of saying “I love you.”

Thanks, Mom. I miss you!

© Melissa Clark Vickers 2018

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