Thrifted Thursday-- A Special Keepsake

I have been thinking a lot lately about why I like to sew.  And although I think there are many reasons, one in particular comes to mind.  My sister and I were talking one day a year or so ago and she said that she had read somewhere that a woman should do something every day that can't be undone.  Because clean houses get messy; clean dishes inevitably get dirty and well, the mountain of laundry (especially this week) never seems to end.  So while I have learned to like those tasks (a post for another day about more advice someone gave me that forced me to look at the mundane in a new way), I still crave to do something each day that can't be undone.

I know for each person that something is different, but for me it is sewing.  Even if it is just putting in a zipper (because that's all the sewing that happened today) or putting in the arm facings tomorrow---it's something that I can do a little each day that won't be undone.  And it fills me.

I like to think I got a sewing gene from my grandma Lova.  Although I only knew her as a knitter (and still have several of the sweaters she knit for my sister and I), she also was an amazing seamstress.  She sewed all her girls' dresses;  she made beautiful doll clothes; and used to go to sewing groups with friends she called "The Jolly Seventeen."

And this little sewing machine sat on her bookshelf for years.  Often on Sunday afternoons, my sister and I would ask her to take it down and sew with it.  She would happily oblige with tiny pieces of paper that my sister and I could punch holes in and "sew."

Now it sits on my bookshelf....and everytime I look at it I fondly remember Grandma Lova. And secondly, it is a gentle reminder to myself that one zipper put in is enough for today.  It's something done that can't be undone.