Hemming

I can remember watching my mother in the front lawn hemming a pair of jeans as I walked home from the school bus stop one day. I was five, she was twenty-one, and the pants were two-inches too long.

It’s funny how memories of our childhood can develop into hobbies and careers in our adulthood. Sewing was like that for me. I watched my mom sew for as long as I can remember and started picking up a needle and thread at the age of four to make my own stuffed animals. We were poor, but I think that made me much more resourceful now than if we had money then. We also did most of our sewing by hand back then because we didn’t have a sewing machine until a few years later.

So yesterday on my lunch break I came home, ate, and started measuring, cutting and hemming pants for my husband’s clown costume. He had originally had worn black pants but they didn’t look right so I searched a multitude of stores until I found a pair of dark brown pants that would go with the hat better. He wanted them shorter than normal, so I trimmed off five-and-a-half inches. I folded the remaining in one-and-a-quarter inches using a clear ruler in four parts, then folded those again one-and-a-quarter inches before pinning. I probably should have put pins in between those four but figured I could handle the short distance and honestly was too lazy. Besides, with the tubular shape of the pant leg I had to only work in short sections at a time or sew slowly anyway. Start to finish, it took me fifteen minutes. If I were doing it by hand like we used to have to do when I was growing up it would’ve taken hours… especially through the folded seam sides!

Thank you, Mom, for teaching me skills that will be with me throughout my life. I am forever grateful.