Sewing clothes for children, darning socks, and mending
everyone's clothes was an ongoing occupation in our house as we were growing up. By the time we were in Junior High School, Mother was teaching me how to sew with the treadle sewing machine - admittedly I was very proud of my handiwork. We ordered fabric, thread, etc. from Montgomery Wards, or Sears Roebuck. I have several old "Monkey Ward" spools of thread in my stash. The old green metal box, with paint almost gone from it, was used to hold the straight pins - thin pins with a tiny head poked in the red tomato pincushion that were so easily to lose. After a day of sewing, we had to scour the floor for any strays, both because they were needed, and because Mother didn't want anyone to step on them. I remember once when we were older and had our own families, Judy called me from her home in Washington to me that she felt liberated because she had just swept the floor and hadn't bothered to sort out the straight pins. There is a moral there somewhere, but I'm not up to speed today, so you'll just have to bear with the anecdote. The blob of old beeswax in front dates way back. When you darned socks or did any other hand mending, you pulled your thread through the beeswax to make it stronger and less apt to tangle. I didn't know how to darn the holes in toes and heels until I came home from my first quarter of college. There were some holey socks, and Mother "made" me sit down and taught me how to darn them. Sad to say, I don't do that any more, but I do have the beeswax. Someday, when I'm gone, my kids will look at that blob and wonder (1) what is it? and (2) why did I bother to save it.
I went back to live in the white house with blue trim and roof from the summer of 1971 to the summer of 1973. During that time, all of the old glass doorknobs began to fail from wear, so
Burchell replaced them with new ones - not so pretty, for sure. I asked for the old knobs, and gave each one to my siblings - do you all still have yours? Just wondering.
Sewing clothes for children, darning socks, and mending everyone's clothes was an ongoing occupation in our house as we were growing up. By the time we were in Junior High School, Mother was teaching me how to sew with the treadle sewing machine - admittedly I was very proud of my handiwork. We ordered fabric, thread, etc. from Montgomery Wards, or Sears Roebuck. I have several old "Monkey Ward" spools of thread in my stash. The old green metal box, with paint almost gone from it, was used to hold the straight pins - thin pins with a tiny head poked in the red tomato pincushion that were so easily to lose. After a day of sewing, we had to scour the floor for any strays, both because they were needed, and because Mother didn't want anyone to step on them. I remember once when we were older and had our own families, Judy called me from her home in Washington to me that she felt liberated because she had just swept the floor and hadn't bothered to sort out the straight pins. There is a moral there somewhere, but I'm not up to speed today, so you'll just have to bear with the anecdote. The blob of old beeswax in front dates way back. When you darned socks or did any other hand mending, you pulled your thread through the beeswax to make it stronger and less apt to tangle. I didn't know how to darn the holes in toes and heels until I came home from my first quarter of college. There were some holey socks, and Mother "made" me sit down and taught me how to darn them. Sad to say, I don't do that any more, but I do have the beeswax. Someday, when I'm gone, my kids will look at that blob and wonder (1) what is it? and (2) why did I bother to save it.
I went back to live in the white house with blue trim and roof from the summer of 1971 to the summer of 1973. During that time, all of the old glass doorknobs began to fail from wear, so Burchell replaced them with new ones - not so pretty, for sure. I asked for the old knobs, and gave each one to my siblings - do you all still have yours? Just wondering.
8 comments:
no. I didn't get one.
As I recall there weren't very many of them (the doorknobs)left to rescue. The "blob" of beeswax was always such a mysterious thing to me. I remember running the thread through the beeswax over and over again and watching as the thread got thicker and thicker. Mother tried hard to teach us how to make do with what we had. The pin box is a happy, familiar sight. Learning to sew on the treadle sewing machine was so much fun - coordination to the max!
Sorry, Dwight. Maybe Ann is correct - that there weren't many of them. Louise has one. Do you, Judy? My memory is hazy about how many of the knobs were replaced. After all, that's about 37 years ago. And the memory is the first to go.
Didn't get one.
Now I feel terrible. But, like Solomon, I can't cut this one in half and share it between Steve and Dwight, so guess I'll just keep it. I always thought it would be cool attaached to a pretty board and used as a hangar.
Actually, you could just give it to me since I don't have one either. And notice that Ann doesn't come right out and say that she does or does not have one.
These are friends from our past. You almost have to been there to understand the sentiment. I actually just darned a couple of socks that I loved and was not ready to pitch. The darning will probably last longer than the rest of the sock. Thanks for doing this posting, Eliz!
Am I in trouble? Chalk it up to a poor memory. - who has and who hasn't????
I was just really thankful we weren't the "relics of the past". For me that is a huge upside to this post!
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