Sewing Saturdays: a gathering

My mom did a great job of teaching me and my sisters useful skills: sewing, carpentry, cooking, plumbing.  Mind you, we did NOT always appreciate it at the time.  We'd ask, "Mama, can you fix my zipper/door knob/whatever?", and she'd say, "Sit down: here's the sewing machine/screwdriver/tool."  And then we'd groan inwardly, and then muddle our way through the task while she watched us struggle and offered guiding advice when we went too far astray or got too lost.

I have given my own kids intermittent repair lessons, but I didn't do as good a job at letting them struggle through the tasks on their own.  I know this because they are grown adults and still ask, "Mama, can you fix . . . ?".  

Dang it.  But fortunately, I'm still their mom even though I'm grown up, and so I decided to make a social event of these technical skills.  I declared to family and a few friends that I'm going to host "Sewing Saturdays".   Here's how I described it.

Bring things that need mending. Learn how to fix them, or just have someone else fix them.  

Bring a friend.  

I'll have some kind of bread and also veggie salad, and two sewing machines . . . [and no air conditioning, so dress accordingly].

The first-ever Sewing Saturday has come and gone.  My daughter brought over two shirts with some dissolved stitching in the arm pits, and also five pairs of jeans that have thigh holes needing patching.  Many other friends lamented they were busy this particular week but asked to be kept on the list for future events.

My daughter plunked her mending pile down on the table, and I handed the first shirt right back to her.  She groaned inwardly (maybe not so inwardly), and then muddled her way through the task while I watched her struggle and offered guiding advice when she got too lost.  (She did a great job, actually.)

I have a giant pile of denim from my brother-in-law's discarded work jeans, and my daughter and I traded off patching them; she did some muddling (but she's actually getting quite competent, she just needs encouragement), and I did some mending, too.  We made it all the way through both shirts and three of the five pairs of jeans, and we've pinned the patches on the next set of jeans so that we'll have something to do on the next Sewing Saturday, which will probably happen next month.

I declare succcess!