On Learning: The Women in My Family

Right now Sheri Howard is having a giveaway here, of some scraps from making her book quilt, and an autographed copy of her book, Ruby Dots. Sheri dedicates her book to her mother, who was always sewing clothes for Sheri and her sister. The comments on her post run the gamut, from no sewing taught, to the many who credit their mothers with inspiring them to sew. As I reflected on those comments and considered what I have seen the women in my family doing, I thought about how skills are learned almost by osmosis, if you see your grandmother, mother, or aunts doing them. My mother didn't sew with a machine at all. My dad even bought her a new sewing machine when I was 12, but she never used it. I used it to sew my cheerleading outfit, with incredible frustration, I might add! And I made an a-line paisley skirt for home ec. That was it. But in later years, my mother hand-sewed. She made little aprons for Megan and Melinda, and little tied quilts for my first four children (the other kids were born after she died). And I like to hand sew. I think this translates into my love of beadwork and painstaking art and craft projects. It feels so traditional and comforting to make things carefully and slowly by hand. It's like reading a favorite book slowly, or writing letters by hand, or sketching outdoors: I feel connected to the past, and to my female ancestors. I don't think I ever saw my grandmothers do any sewing, although my father's mother, Grandma Buis, was forever surrounded by balls of material she was winding for rag quilts. (How I wish I had some of that material now!) I remember her entire attic was filled with multi-colored balls of material. Most of them seemed to be dark-colored with small patterns. I imagine they were made from old clothing, so that may have been the colors she wore. I wish I could go back in time and see her wearing her dresses, see her house and what she did. The same goes for my mother's mother, Grandma Wakefield (later, Gray). I don't know why, but I've always felt a strong pull towards the elderly, wanting to ask them questions about long ago. I asked my Grandma Wakefield lots of questions, and we got some of her responses on tape. :) Nowadays, you can scan old photos and zoom in on their clothes, hair, jewelry, and the backgrounds. That's the best part of the picture! (I notice that there wasn't much grass in the yards, and what grass there was wasn't mowed very often. Reel mowers cut the grass differently than lawn mowers do today. The grass looked more natural and unshorn when you were done. But they could be heavy to push! At least to a little girl of four, which was the age I tried mowing our grass with one. I think I held out for two or three pushes.) Anyway, sometimes I wonder if I'm wrong to edit the backgrounds out of our photos (unless it's a background I like). Maybe I'm cheating our descendents out of a peek into our lives! So, although I don't have a heritage of sewing in my background, I did see gardening, canning, baking, cooking, doing church work, telling stories, loving books, storing keepsakes, writing letters, being frugal, and serving others. And I saw a lot of love... I wonder what female traditions you have observed in your families. Would you write about them? Include your aunts and older sisters, if you have them. Thanks! xoxoxo