A stitch in time makes 12 goody bags.

The adventures of sewing with my Grandma are over (well, at least for now).

I took my material over there last week and she sat turning the cloth over in her hands, pinning it, pretending to sew, un-pinning it, deciding on the drawstring, for about 5 minutes. I thought I could have figured out where/how to sew it, but I let the “expert” decide.

The next five minutes were spent clearing off the top of the sewing machine, opening and raising the super-heavy main part (It’s so heavy she can’t lift it and I have to use both hands) and locating the cord and plug which were so old I was a little afraid to plug it into the socket.

For the ten minutes after that, we hunted the right color of thread, rolled up a bobbin, and worked the main thread through such an intricate maze of loops and holes and hooks that I was for sure I was going to end up in Wonderland with Alice after I put the thread through the needle.

Twenty minutes later, I finally get to begin. She stands over me, giving me directions I can’t follow because she it practically on top of me, breathing her “mint please!” hot breath down my neck, until I tell her she is going to have to move. She relinquishes her position to a few inches back, allowing me to actually touch the machine now. I line up the cloth, press the pedal and the machine takes off in a flash and I’ve got 4 inches of stitching before I even realized Grandma is yelling at me to stop. Multiple times, she offers to take over. Am I that bad?

My first bag, I sewed perfectly. It is not straight by ANY means, but all of the stitches are where they are supposed to be and that’s saying something. Now that I am a pro from sewing my one bag, I think I have enough experience under my belt and dismiss Grandma to go play with Riley. All I have to do is sew one side, which will be come the inside, flip it inside out and sew the top for the drawstring, then flip it back and sew up the other side. I didn’t think I had enough of a steady hand sew them with the drawstring in them, because I figured I’d sew the drawstring to the bag (and I would have been right) so I decided I’d try to poke them through with a chopstick later. My Grandma came up with a better method: using a safety pin to push it through. I just loop the drawstring through the pin and work it down the material, a little at a time.

My second bag I sewed the two sides up without doing the drawstring side (whoops), so Grandma offered to pick the thread out while I screwed up my third bag by sewing one side on the inside and one side on the outside. Whoops again. While Grandma unstitched my second screw-up, I successfully made the fourth one right, and Riley smeared orange Cheetos goo on it. My 6^th or 7^th one, I sewed the drawstring pocket too close to the outside and we couldn’t poke it through, so guess what? Grandma picked out another one while I attempted to not screw up anymore.

I got 9 done the first day and 3 the second. Now time to poke all the drawstrings through, personalize them with stamps and paint, and add said “goodies”.

 

One of Riley’s bed sheets got ripped on the corner so I took it over to Grandma’s. She said “Well, I guess you can do it since you know how to sew now!” Conveniently, Riley needed to go eat, so I left it there to come back and “work on tomorrow”.

I picked it up the next day, completely fixed.