Sewing

 Is that me sewing?

Why, yes it is. This would have been about 1973.

I learned to sew in Home Economics class in junior high school. In that class I made an apron:

You can't see it very well in this picture, but I'm wearing the apron I made in high school. The yellow part is the bib. It ties at the waist and the 'skirt' part is red. This picture was taken in 1986.

Sewing is one of the many skills that I had in the past and have since lost. 

This was 1969. I made this jumpsuit. I made another one just like it from purple fabric with a paisley print. They zipped up the front. As I recall they were actually pretty easy to make. This morning I would have sworn on my life that I had a good picture of me wearing it -- but I have spent all the livelong day trying to find it, and now I'm beginning to doubt my sanity because that photo is nowhere to be found. 

This blouse is one of the things I made. This picture was taken in 1971.

Before my first son was born in 1980 I bought some bed sheets and used them to make a bassinette cover -- without a pattern!

From that same fabric I also made curtains for the windows in the nursery and a diaper holder that hung on the wall. 

You can barely see it on the left, but that's the diaper holder.

These are the nursery curtains. Keith is teaching Christopher how to play the guitar.

This is my mother's Singer treadle sewing machine. It's the one I made the nursery stuff with. I like using a treadle machine much better than an electric machine.

I made these two Christmas stockings from a baby quilt. This would have been about 1986 or 1987. (The dresser was an heirloom that belonged to my great-aunt Effie.)

I made the window curtain on the right in this picture of my mom and dad. I made it from a pillowcase. This was 1986.

I made these two quilts. They are not really quilts. They are tacked coverlets -- a blanket between two sheets, and tacked at intervals with yarn. I got the idea from a quilt we got as a wedding gift from my great aunt Helen.

The yellow one is the one Aunt Helen made.

I used to be able to do a lot of things that I can't do now.