I think I used this title for another blog post...seems appropriate for these words penned a few days ago....

Leaves fell Friday
Golden
Snowflake-like
Beginning to carpet my backyard

Today they skitter
Frantic to make their escape
To someone else's lawn

I should don a red sweatshirt
For the sake of celebration

My favorite season is underway

                                                                                                                                                                               














            

I'm a little early, but my week is getting busy, and this is too much fun to pass up just because I'll have run out of time for blogging by week's busy end.  So...

Friday, July 17, is the 54th anniversary of the opening of Disneyland.  (I may forever after this remember that--or not--because that happened in the same year I was born.  Now you know how old I am.)  It is also the--let me do the math!--219th birthday of the patenting of the sewing machine in 1790.

I have never been to Disney--Land or World.  I've never really wanted to go there, although I must admit that at least three families that I know have been  to Disneyworld recently, and their delightful vacation pictures have inspired me to at least think about the possibility of visiting the land of Mickey and Donald someday.

Anyway, I do have a sewing machine, so I will hereby honor the event we will mark on Friday with a few reminiscences. 

I received my Elna Lotus model (made in Sweden) as a high school graduation present (back in 1973--I'll save you nerdy friends the effort of figuring that out from my age disclosure above).  We'd always used Singer sewing machines in home economics class, but my aunt, who was an accomplished seamstress, had convinced my parents that wasn't what I wanted, so we went Scandinavian.  I remember going with my mom to a sewing machine shop in Battle Creek, Michigan, and picking that machine out.  (That was almost as good a day as the first day school supplies appear at Wal-Mart!)  The salesman demonstrated several machines--the only selling point I remember for mine was that it could sew through several layers of naugahyde with ease. 

That machine went with me everywhere for a few years.  It's small in size--about the size of a briefcase--and it was easy to take back and forth to college.  Have you ever known a college student who had time to sew clothes?  I made time for sewing a few things to wear--and I made a little money here and there mending a bit for this one or making a buttonhole for that one--but mainly I stitched up new duds at home on school breaks.  I do remember buying this really cool flowered fabric in the basement of the Newberry's 5&10 store in Alma, MI, where I went to college--black background with bright flowers splashed all about...wild, for my tastes.  I bought it to make a bathrobe and was so proud of myself because I installed a long row of snaps all down the front of the thing--all by myself, and correctly, too!  That robe lasted me for years. 

When I graduated from college (my parents were very practical gift givers--I got to pick out my first set of dishes for that present...gray stoneware, with a cobalt rim, and a brown basket of cobalt flowers in the middle of each plate), the machine went with me to my first teaching job in Forrest City, Arkansas.  I don't remember buying any fabric in Arkansas.  I must have bought it at home on vacations and taken it back to sew.  I made almost all my own clothes for awhile--I can still remember some of them.  One of my favorites was a dress made of fabric with a smokey aqua background and pale magenta flowers sprigged all over it.  The oriental flair of the design was so unlike my usual more countrified taste--I think that's why I liked it so much.  Plus, I remember that is the dress I wore the Easter Sunday that I told Michael, yes, I would marry him.  Maybe that's really why I liked it...good associations.

The Elna was the machine I used to sew the "unfinished Christmas dress" for Ellen, which has become part of family "laugh at Mom" lore.  When I was growing up, my mom ALWAYS made us girls new dresses for first day of school, Christmas, and Easter.  She made other clothes for us, too, but we could always count on something new for those special occasions.  There were at least a couple of Christmases that I felt compelled to do the same SuperMom thing for Ellen--after all, I only had one daughter to sew for (my mom had three); how hard could that be?  (In time, I came to realize that I was NOT SuperMom, especially in the weeks before Christmas, and life was made somewhat less stressful by not adding the sewing of THE Christmas dress into the pre-holiday mix.) But, before I learned that lesson, there was the year of the red velour jumper (Is this why Ellen is not fond of jumpers, I wonder?).  Cute sewing pattern to follow, lovely fabric--but the procrastinating mom had not gotten an early enough start on the sewing project, forgetting that sewing as a wife and mom wasn't like sewing in the olden days of old maidhood.  In that season of life, one could drop everything and sew until the project was done.  In the current incarnation that was my life, there were interruptions like preparing meals and making sure everyone had clean underwear.  So, it came down to the afternoon before the evening children's Christmas program at church--and the jumper was still not done.  Confident that I could finish before it was time to leave for church, I sewed through the afternoon.  The minutes flew by--I was sure the clock was skipping every other one--and it was time to leave--only, the dress was unfinished.  Hem yet to go, if I had been Red Green, I would have pulled out the duct tape right then and there.  As it was, I turned to the only things a mother in my position could--safety pins and double stick tape.  So, to that long ago Christmas program, off trotted my daughter with a jumper held together with pins and adhesive!  I remember nothing about the program.  I do remember being mildly irritated that that dress didn't hold up very well after its debut-the fabric ended up being the kind that frayed easily and, in my sewing flurry, I had not taken the steps that would prevent the seams from pulling out as the fabric frayed.  So, the Christmas jumper had a rather short term of service.

Somewhere along the line, through all the bumps and thumps, the old Lotus has lost its edge.  It still works--I sewed a first Christmas outfit for the Granddaughter with it year before last and used it as recently as January to sew a window valance for the now-pink bathroom.  But, for any major projects, I'm at a point in life where I will either need to borrow Ellen's newer Singer model (bought for HER college graduation in 2006--I think the first thing she made with it was her wedding dress!) or buy a new machine. 

Hmmm...maybe, besides this ode to my old reliable Elna, sewing machine shopping would be a great way to celebrate the anniversary of the patenting of the sewing machine!?!  Any recommendations from my sewing friends out there?