Growing up, my grandmother’s upstairs sewing room was a source of fascination. The room was bursting at the seams with vivid colors of fabrics, the mesmerizing patterns and miles of thread that would hold my attention – until Grandma would lift me up on her lap and we would begin to design and create on her sewing machine.
Cutting material, laying out a pattern, matching thread to fabric – all this and more kept me and my grandma occupied for days as we sat around her dining table sewing pillowcases, placeholders and quilts.
As I grew older, I found myself spending less and less time sitting at that table surrounded by fabrics with her. My time was split between school, extracurriculars and friends. I just didn’t have the time anymore.
But now, as I settle down behind the sewing machine she purchased for me 10 years ago, preparing to make a gift quilt for a friend, I rack my brain trying to remember all that she taught me.
My grandma’s sewing story starts in the 1950s. Living on a farm, there wasn’t a lot of extra money lying around to buy new clothes. Rather than limiting herself to her old clothing, she taught herself how to sew and would hand-sew new clothes for herself using her others as a guide.
Flash forward a few years and Grandma has gone from making clothes to making baby quilts and stuffed animals – that’s where I enter the picture. I am the oldest grandchild of eight and my grandma has made it a mission of hers to make a baby blanket and a stuffed elephant for each grandchild.
My grandmother completed my blanket – a small four-foot-by-three-foot quilt with a green backing with yellow stars and the front covered with different farm animals – with me sitting on her lap a year after I was born. That was my first introduction to the world of sewing.
Following that was years of hand-sewing little projects to enter into the county 4-H fair, sewing classes, creating my own quilts and countless more projects designed on the weathered wood dining table in her house.
The art of sewing is something that has been passed on generation to generation. Mothers, or grandmothers, teach their children this skill and a new generation of quilters are born.
After she retired, my grandma turned her attention to gaining new skills and creating new experiences: spending weeks out on the road on her motorcycle, knitting and sewing with her friend group and traveling between southern New York, upstate New York and Vermont to see her grandchildren.
When I graduated high school, my grandma gave me the greatest gift imaginable: a huge quilt made of cut up T-shirts and pictures printed onto the fabric highlighting moments from my childhood. This quilt captured the memories and moments I had forgotten. All of my old FFA, 4-H and class shirts, along with pictures of me growing up, now drape over my bed and I reminisce every time I look at that quilt.
For many people, the thought of sewing is paired with images of elderly ladies and thoughts of boredom. For me, it is met with feelings of warmth and love, thoughts of spending time with family and memories of sitting at the dining table surrounded by yards of fabrics.
So now, with this on my mind as I sit at my sewing machine, I grab my scissors and start cutting out designs and stitching them together.
Although I don’t know quite what it will look like until I finish, I am confident that anytime spent sewing will be rewarding.
by Emily Carey
