The Apron

THE APRON

 When I was 9, I set about to make a Mother’s Day apron for Mama.  I knew how to operate the sewing machine, at least enough to sew a straight line.  Besides, Daddy had taught me to cross-stitch, so I figured he’d have my back.
 

I saw just the right apron pattern and shelled out my allowance money.  Now, patterns come in an envelope.  The only way to know exactly what you’re in for is to look at the back of the envelope, which tells you … exactly what you’re in for.  I didn’t know that, but I did know I was supposed to buy the amount of fabric specified on the back.  It said something about thread, but I figured Mama had plenty of thread.

When Mama was safely out of the house for a day, and with Daddy on call, I ran to the sewing closet and eagerly opened the envelope.  Lots of pieces spilled out.   They were marked with names like “right peplum” (cut 2), “bib” (bib? for an adult?), and “facing,” and terms like “shirr along this line” and “seam allowance.”  And we hadn’t even come to the directions page. 

I had lots to do before Mama came home!

The directions were impenetrable, but, happily, they were illustrated.  Armed with scores of pins and The Sewing Scissors (using them for anything but fabric was a hanging offense), I laid the fabric on the floor, placed the pattern pieces on it, and cut around each one.  Oddly, I had an awful lot of fabric left over.  This concerned me, but I couldn’t wait to use the machine, so I started pinning.  That’s when I realized I should have doubled the fabric to cut two of several of the pieces.

When I had re-laid and cut the pieces that seemed to need twins, I was ready for the machine.  Yes, Mama did have plenty of thread, but none of it was the right color.  I decided this would be a good time to talk to Daddy.  He came upstairs, agreed the thread colors were all wrong, and offered to take me to the shop to buy some.

 Buttonhole thread.  Quilting thread.  Heavy-duty thread.  Thread for “general sewing” sounded good.  Another important lesson:  take a piece of your fabric when you go to buy thread.  There are many, many shades of pink.  Luckily, there was some of my fabric left on the bolt at the shop, so I was able find a match.  Whew.

Back at the machine, it became clear that I would have to thread it and “wind the bobbin ("bobbin?"), according to the manual.  That, too, was illustrated, and miraculously the machine got threaded and the bobbin wound. 

 NOW, I exulted, I can actually sew!  However, the fabric pieces didn’t seem to go together the way the directions showed.  Once again I enlisted Daddy, who was an engineer, after all.   Peering through his reading glasses, he successfully deciphered construction details.  But even Daddy didn’t know how to shirr or baste or make a buttonhole.

I worked on that apron for what seemed like weeks, but which, knowing my penchant for last-minute projects, might have been five days.  I had given up on waiting for Mama to leave the house to work on my project, since my every waking hour, except for school and sleep, was spent either sewing or ripping out.  All she knew was that I was doing something special and that she did not have access to her sewing machine.

Every single seam was crooked and had to be taken apart and resewn. There were extra pieces. There was a special sewing machine attachment for shirring – but what did you actually do with it?

I just couldn’t do it.  I put the part I’d finished and all the leftover pieces into a gift box, thrust it into my mama's hands on Mother’s Day morning, and burst into humiliated tears, then sobs.

“Why honey,” she said as she drew me into her lap, “don’t you know an apron is one of the hardest projects in the world?”