A funny thing happened on the way to the checkout…

Sometimes it is the simplest event that can change the course of history. Something we never saw coming, and couldn’t have planned no matter how carefully we calculate.

I’m thrilled that one of my children has learned to weave and actually enjoys it, and actually wanted her own loom and equipment.  I’ve spent so much of my life in something I’m passionate about, and have acquired a small arsenal of weaving equipment and accessories.  It would be nice to pass that knowledge and equipment onto another generation when the time comes.

In spite of that great pleasure I get when I watch my daughter run amok in my studio, I always felt bad that neither of my children expressed any interest at all in learning to sew.  It is what I do best.  I did try.  My daughter made a couple pretty terrific outfits out of …  duct tape…

She even taught herself how to install a zipper by using my monograph on Closures.

But that was years ago, and she never really took to it, nor was she fascinated by the process, and she never seemed to have the patience for it.  I never pushed it.  You have to want to sew garments, to be fascinated by the process, to want to take the time to spend getting the fit right, and that takes a lot of practice, and to be fair, it takes knowing that what you make probably won’t fit you within a  few months, when you are still growing, like when I was 10.  But I was unusual in that I took great pride and fascination in the actual making of the garment, not in wearing the finished garment.  That part was secondary…

So, imagine, my surprise when the following series of events took place over the last 18 hours or so, changing the course of history so to speak.

It all started with the Friday night shopping extravaganza at Kohl’s with my 20% coupon.  I wrote about it yesterday in my last post.

On the way to the check out, with a cart full of new clothes for my daughter, I saw this really bright orange jersey knit maxi skirt from Apt. 9 and I grabbed it off the rack.  My daughter said to me, “Mommy, you don’t have anything orange in your wardrobe, that would be so awesome.  Try it on.”  I hadn’t bought a single thing at either trip to Kohl’s this week, except for a new large Samsonite suitcase, since I go through suitcases like chocolate chip cookies, they usually don’t last me for more than a year or two with the abuse they get from my traveling.

I tried on the skirt.  It was fun. And colorful, and so I came home with a new maxi skirt knowing full well it would match nothing in my wardrobe.

Meanwhile, last night, I moved the table loom from the warp painting workshop up to the table so I could finish off the fabric.

One of the things I love about weaving is how it opens up your mind to just wander and create.  Opposite the loom on the back wall, where I was actually facing, was my stash of fabrics I’ve accumulated over the past years.  It is pretty extensive.

I kept taking breaks to hunt through the stacks.

I found this silk chiffon, 3/4 yard piece I bought from Waechter’s Silk Shop about a year and a half ago on a previous trip to Asheville.

It had orange in it and would look really great as a chiffony thing overlaying this really slim knit maxi skirt…

I searched for patterns.  All my patterns have been scanned into my computer and are assigned keywords for search purposes.  I looked at all the tops.  I found this…

My daughter came into the room and watched me dig out the pattern from the storage boxes.

She asked if she could do a search for keyword Jackets.  She was very quiet as she looked through the images.

She found this…

She pulled the pattern out of the appropriate storage box.

Then she said to me the words I’ve wanted to hear for 20 years…

“Mommy, I really wished I had learned how to sew when I was younger, it would be so awesome to be able to sew this jacket up, now that I have all these new clothes and I like how they work on my body…”

Sigh…

“Mommy, can you teach me?”

So the dilemma, and there is one, is how do I begin to teach my daughter how to sew, give her my 45 years of experience when she leaves for the rest of the summer, on Thursday, and then returns to Massachusetts the end of August which is four hours away.

She emailed the camp director and found out she didn’t have to be at camp until Sunday night.

I leave Sunday for Sievers.  I have lots I have to get done this week to leave everything in order before I head off to Sievers.  I do not have time to teach her how to sew.

But this is really really important.  Because she asked…

And I’m a teacher.

And my greatest wish was to be able to teach my daughter.

And so I gave her the preliminary lecture I give to any student about how the size chart on the back of the pattern envelope is completely irrelevant, and that she will also have to grade the pattern up two sizes because it was purchased to fit me.

And so we began.  I wove on my little table loom, and she graded and drafted all the pattern pieces, tracing them off onto pattern tracing medium, Red Dot Tracer.  We have to make a preliminary muslin from the Red Dot and see about the fit in the bust area, because unlike me, who lost the little I had to cancer 10 years ago, my daughter has terrific assets which makes it impossible for her to fit in a pattern right out of the envelope.

Stay tuned…