By Diane Forrest
Twenty-five
years ago when I moved to my current city, I remember going to Wal-Mart to the
sewing department. There were 2 rows of
tables with stools there. You could pull
up a stool and look through books and books full of patterns from Simplicity or
McCall’s. Once you picked the pattern
you wanted, you would go to the long filing cabinets, pull out a drawer and
find your pattern. There were rows and
rows of material, and bolts of material stacked on tables. There were even two ladies working back there
to help cut your material and answer any questions you had.
I
would get all my supplies, take it home, cut out my pattern and pin it to the
material. Cut it out and set about
sewing on my mother's old Singer sewing machine. I could even make some things
just by designing it in my mind. I made
all of my son's Halloween costumes, recovered an old couch a few times, and
made several throw pillows with that machine.
As
the years passed by - the sewing department at Wal-Mart has gotten smaller and
smaller. Today it hardly exists at
all. The country has seen a decline in
the use of the sewing machine that was once a standard in every household. Most
of this generation has never even seen a sewing machine, much less know how to
operate one. Sewing has become a lost
art, with people buying premade clothes and home items, and where alterations
can be done at a laundry/dry cleaning or by a few little old ladies at
home. My great grandmother did
alterations from her home as well as my mother in law. . My mother was not a "craft" person,
but I did learn how to use a sewing machine from my dad and while in school
during a home economics course. While I
am proud to say I can whip up a skirt or set curtains in no time flat, I am
ashamed to say I never taught my son to use a sewing machine. This concerns me because what if he has a
child that needs to have a pumpkin costume for Halloween, or a clown? What if he needs a cape to be Dracula? How will he make these?
Today
is Sewing Machine Day.
Thomas Saint patented the first design of the sewing machine in 1790 and
it has since undergone many evolutions. This hallmark of the Industrial
Revolution allows for efficient creation of clothing and other stitched
items. Sewing machines did not go into
mass production until the 1850's, when Isaac Singer built the first
commercially successful machine. Singer built the first sewing machine where
the needle moved up and down rather than the side-to-side and a foot treadle
powered the needle. Previous machines were all hand-cranked.
Why
not pull out your old sewing machine, or your mom's or grandmothers and try
your hand at recovering a pillow or making a quick skirt.
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