When my lack of sewing skills hit a new low

With another minor hockey season underway, even though my kids no longer play minor hockey the season makes me think of the years of traveling to rinks and traveling the province with my sons.

There are lots of fun memories and I’m even reminded of some that I had forgotten about when they pop in my memories on Facebook.

I will admit, however, that there is one thing that I absolutely do not miss about minor hockey and that is the annual sewing of the name bars and sponsor bars on my kids’ jerseys.

A sewing diva I have never claimed to be.

I once brought one of my kids’ winter jackets to a seamstress because the zipper was broken. I had fidgeted with it for days and couldn’t fix it. I just couldn’t get the zipper to latch at the bottom of the jacket.

Imagine my embarrassment when the seamstress looked at the jacket, ran her fingers up to the collar and said, “Oh, it looks like it’s a two-zipper system,” and she pulled down the zipper and had it working within seconds.

Fortunately there was no charge for stupidity, although it did cost me my pride.

Over the years I lost count of the number of times I sewed the back of the hockey jersey to the front of the jersey while sewing the name or sponsor bars on.

Or the amount of times I pricked my finger with the sewing needle.

Yes, I could have handed off the task to someone else, aka: my mom (and I’ll admit, a few times I did) but most of the time I wanted the satisfaction of knowing I had done it myself.

Straight or crooked, yes, I was responsible.

Although it wasn’t as great a feeling knowing that I was also the person responsible for the fact that the stitching would let go – at minimum – around five weeks before the season came to a close.

I believe one year I did staple the name bar back on.

One year when I thought I couldn’t get any worse at the sewing gig I managed to prove myself wrong.

Proudly I had managed not to sew the front and the back of the jersey together.

But what I did manage to do was sew my finger to the jersey.

I kid you not. I had put the needle and thread right through the skin – not enough to draw blood, or to even apparently feel it because I kept right on sewing in total oblivion.

It wasn’t until I tried to stand back to admire my work that I saw I was actually attached to my work.

I could not stop laughing at myself.

You would have thought when I shouted out in hysterics to my oldest son, “Oh my God! I sewed my finger to the jersey!” that I would have gotten more of a response out of him than a grunting, “Uh-huh.”

His reaction made it sound as if this had been just a matter of time.

Truth be told, he was probably right.