{"id":106,"date":"2013-03-12T14:05:15","date_gmt":"2013-03-12T14:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stair2stop.com\/?p=106"},"modified":"2013-03-12T14:07:25","modified_gmt":"2013-03-12T14:07:25","slug":"my-life-as-a-seamstress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stair2stop.com\/?p=106","title":{"rendered":"my life as a seamstress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Growing up, I longed to sew and made many efforts to further my dream.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I asked for and received a toy sewing machine for Christmas. Based on the television advertisement, I was certain I would create masterpieces in no time whatsoever.<\/li>\n<li>A few years later, I asked my Aunt Mary to tutor me. She did, but please note that her claim to fame was sewing rectangular cloth bandages for some do-good organization. She did, however, own a sewing machine, circa 1916.<\/li>\n<li>Yet later, I enrolled in classes at the uptown Singer store with my friend Carolyn. On the first day my teacher announced that we would all enter our creations in the Stylemaker&#8217;s Contest at the end of the course. She would regret that decision.<\/li>\n<li>Finally, I took a sewing unit in home ec class in summer school. Other than the beach cover-up I made (detailed below), the most memorable moment was when I cut the t-shirt i was wearing right along with the fabric for my beach cover-up.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>My efforts resulted in a couple of memorable creations:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I chose to make a pair of shorts under my Aunt Mary&#8217;s tutelage. The fabric featured red, white, and blue patriotic stripes, and with good luck, I was hoping to have them ready by 4th of July. Alas I missed the deadline which was just as well because when completed they were very, very tight. All right, I could not get them beyond my thighs.<\/li>\n<li>For my Stylemaker&#8217;s contest entry, I also chose a patriotic theme but figured shorts were a problem, so went with a pattern for a &#8220;shift.&#8221; (I believe &#8220;shift&#8221; is a Latin term for the easiest possible dress to sew.) Once again, by the end, my efforts resulted in something way too small. I need to make clear to my readers, that at this point in my life, I was waif-like in appearance, so my size was not the issue. I believe the issue was that the whole pinning and measuring seemed laborious. Certain &#8220;I knew better,&#8221; I often went rogue on the fabric cutting. Although I was able to struggle into the dress, it was very, very short, even in a days of mini-skirts. When I exited the dressing room in the back of the Singer store, my teacher was stunned. Carolyn laughed until she cried.<\/li>\n<li>You may think I was deterred but no, I made yet one more attempt. In middle school home ec class, I set my sights on a beach coverup, also striped. I was extremely generous with the fabric, learning from the earlier shorts and dress debacles. When finished, the cover-up was both ugly and uncomfortable. On the upside I was able to put it one without cutting off my circulation. Once donned, I realized how itchy and uncomfortable it was, so decided to wash it to &#8220;soften it up.&#8221; At the end of the wash cycle, I retrieved it, both pieces, front and back, which had come unstitched in the washing machine.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Sewing is not in God&#8217;s plan for me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Growing up, I longed to sew and made many efforts to further my dream. I asked for and received a toy sewing machine for Christmas. Based on the television advertisement, I was certain I would create masterpieces in no time &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/stair2stop.com\/?p=106\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dopey-stuff-i-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stair2stop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stair2stop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stair2stop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stair2stop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stair2stop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stair2stop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108,"href":"https:\/\/stair2stop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions\/108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stair2stop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stair2stop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stair2stop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}