Sew this, Satan

I bought a sewing machine to hem pants and make pillows. Simple, right?

Then it arrived and I low-key freaked. Top-threading? Tension? Stitch length? Sewing friends tell me trepidation is normal for a newbie, but I’m pretty sure Widdle didn’t pull his first power drill out of the box and hyperventilate.

I did what we all do to learn something new: I watched 295,849,361 YouTube videos. They helped, but after a month I still couldn’t sew a straight line. My jagged seams looked like a child’s drawing of mountains.

Then the thread started coming out of the needle, flying loose in mid-stitch. This is not amusing when you’ve hemmed an entire leg, only to realize the stitches are just a row of tiny, empty holes.

By this time, forget sewing. I need a drink.

My saving grace was sewing classes. After taking two, my hemmed pants didn’t look like they were chewed by a beaver.

Then a class came up for making a pillow with piping, and I had to try it. (Just like I had to try spike heels when I was 12, and promptly fell and sprained my ankle.)

I arrived early to buy fabric, piping and thread, and to my dismay was handed four pages of sewing instructions. 

Then the sweet shop-owner saw the piping I’d picked and said, “Oh no, dear, you’ll be making your own.”

Thus, a five-hour-and-thirty-minute Dumpster fire began. In slow motion.

The instructor, Pam, was beautiful, blonde and incredibly kind. There were four other students in the class, including an intense teen who introduced herself as Slater, and spelled it.

We folded our contrast fabric to cut strips on the bias, then sewed them together at right angles to make one long piece of fabric. Next step, fold the fabric around the cord, pin and stitch it together. 

After two hours, I hadn’t even managed to make my piping, because 1. 45-degree angles are hard, and 2. the thread flew out of the needle about every 90 seconds. 

Desperate, I rented a fancy machine that retailed for about $2,000 and had no buttons, just a screen. Trying to figure it out on the fly, I started to sweat.

Pam was so kind. She spent so much time with me, it was like a private lesson. I did feel better at 4:30 p.m., when nobody else had their pillows finished.

“Everybody OK if we go a little over?” Pam chirped.

“YES,” we bawled.

I struggled on, trying to pin and stitch fabric to cord, install an invisible zipper, pin fabric together – wrap and pin and cut and sew.

An hour later, nobody was done.

“We’re almost there!” Pam chirped again, still smiling, still kind.

At 5:30 p.m., one lady finished, thanked Pam and left. Twenty minutes later another student did the same. And another.

Soon it was just me and Slater. My palms and neck were clammy. My head was pounding.

Then Slater finished and triumphantly held up a seashell pillow with navy piping. It was gorgeous. Meanwhile, I was ripping out my six-thousandth stitch from another crooked hem.

Pam came over and helped me navigate the corners. Then she sewed while I pulled the fabric.

Suddenly, at 6:30 p.m., it was over. I had a lumpy orange and cream pillow with fuchsia piping. The invisible zipper was definitely visible, and crooked. The fabric was puckered, and gapped in a couple of places. But Pam and I agreed it was lovely.

I was so happy. Sew, sew happy.

Julie R. Smith, who now needs therapy, can be reached at widdleswife@aol.com.