Let’s do this together
I had a very hard time trying to spell my Irish name in needle craft at junior school on those old school samplers which came ready-made with a grid of holes
I cack-handedly stitched Favorn, which of course ended up being my nickname for a few terms, until it was replaced by Pam Ayres because of the bowl haircut my mum gave me.
(Don’t worry, Mum, I won’t forget that when I’m choosing your care home!)
I then progressed to making a cross-stitch table mat and I remember happily sewing away with my pattern, and then the teacher coming along to point out it was all wrong, and the frustration of having to unpick it all.
In the end, I had to cut my losses and my table mat became more of a bookmark.
I was thinking about my school sewing classes this week when I dusted off my old electric sewing machine at home in an effort to be more sustainable and thrifty, a bit like Barbara in The Good Life, but without the pert bottom.
I never did use it much after the first flurry of activity, mainly because it goes too fast for me to control. One false move and I’ve sewn my sleeve to the fabric.
I learned how to machine sew the first time using my mum’s antique Singer, which she dragged home from a jumble sale back in the 1970s.
She swore it sewed better than modern electric ones, but then my mum’s a bit of an old hippy who thinks the industrial revolution was a mistake, and we’d all be a lot happier if we were sitting around reading poetry to each other by candlelight. Mind you, she might get her wish this winter.
It was hard work to hand crank the Singer with one hand while trying to sew with the other. And threading it and getting the tension right was a work of art, especially feeding it into the shuttle and catching the needle.
There were also no health and safety features with the vintage model either – if you started sewing without putting the guard down first, you could easily spear your hand to the plate.
There was literally blood, sweat and tears in the first cheesecloth skirt I made for my Sindy doll.
My plan is to start sewing simple things again, like taking the hem on a pair of curtains up, and hopefully this time without leaving any of my body parts in the lining.
Email me at siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or write to Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP. Please note, if you send us photos of your grandchildren, we’ll also need permission of one of their parents to print them... Thanks!
Yours, Siobhan