The Reluctant Seamstress

A few weeks ago, I noticed that the underarm seam on Cubby's winter coat had ripped out.  I don't know how it happened (though I suspect it had something to do with his father's habit of lifting him by the back of his coat, much like a mother tiger lifts her cub by the scruff of the neck), but I wasn't real quick about remedying the situation.  Because it meant mending.  And my God, do I hate anything to do with a needle.

This particular domestic skill has passed me by.  I can mend a seam, sew on a button, and hem some pants, but only when absolutely necessary.  Unfortunately, with a small boy and a larger boy in the form of a husband, there's a lot of ripping and lost buttons.  So unless I want to buy a new shirt every time a button comes off, I must do the loathsome needlework.

I'm quite good at putting it off for awhile however, as evidenced by the coat. It was just the outer shell that ripped; the inner liner was still intact.  It's not as if he was exposed to the elements or anything.  Just looking a little trashy.  With such rationalizations do I avoid the needle.

But then this week, I noticed one of Cubby's shirts had a loose button destined to fall off and get lost if not sewed on more tightly immediately, and then I ripped the seam of one of my own brand-new maternity shirts when I was trying to remove a tag*.

I took those two things as a sign that I should get off my ass and sew up my son's coat already.

Big sigh, out came the needle, thread, and scissors, and I commenced the tying of those tedious little knots and the making of the tedious little stitches. Which always end up being quite noticeable and large, because I haven't the patience for making little stitches and my mending is really ugly as a result.

The whole thing took me maybe fifteen minutes, and now I have that virtuous feeling that comes with having completed a long-delayed task.  Until my wretched seams give way in a week and I have to do it all over again.

So where are you on the sewing spectrum, duckies?  Are you the crafty type who makes your own clothes, or would you rather throw a garment away than sew on a button?


* Do not even get me started on scratchy tags in clothing.  I could write a whole, incredibly irritated post about how come they have to be sewn into a lining so they're impossible to remove without making a hole and why can't everyone just use those printed-on label things like L.L. Bean has instead of tags?  Except that would be boring to read, and anyway I pretty much just summed it up in that one run-on sentence.