Needles & Feet

With the amounting snow seen outside my window these days, I've recently taken back to the sewing machine. It's a nice distraction away from the endless cleaning every day. And as I sit and sew, listening to the hum of the needle working away, it occurred to me how much life is a lot like sewing.

Forrest Gump told how life was like a box of chocolate......you never know which one you're gonna get.

But this is too vague for a real life....

Here is how I see it...

Patterns
You're excited to create something new with a paper pattern, but as in life, just because you have the directions, doesn't mean you always understand them. At times, it looks as though its all written in Greek! (props to those who can read greek.) Some are easy, others are a real challenge...and some are just right.

Seam Ripper
Here you are, plowing through your project, feeling rather good about yourself until you hold up your work to take it all in. Then you notice you've applied fabric backwards....caught other parts of it you didn't want sewn together etc...You groan and have to go back and make sense of just what you did...taking the seam ripper to undo your past mistakes in order to fix your mistake and try to move forward in the right direction.

Fabric
Life is exciting.....just like when you are at the fabric store and a particular print (or more) catches your eye. You want to buy a yard of them all. But they don't always work together. As humans, we struggle to find balance between them all. This piece is too busy, this one helps neutralize and calm the intensity, while this fabric print helps marry it all together. Our relationships with people can be a challenge to find what works for you or for others.

Thread
Our lives are like spools of thread. Some come with yards and yards of life, while others were shortchanged on the spool. We are always adjusting the thread tension on the machine, finding some real snarls. Our project has to be paused while we make sense of the "why" and "how"  while we take the scissors to cut out the rats nest.

The Dawgs
As much as we want to pause life and enjoy the "now" just a little bit longer...the little hands under the sewing foot keep grabbing you along, one stitch at a time. You may backstitch a little bit, but never for too long as its hard to keep everything in line with one hand while the other presses reverse.

I picked up sewing just after having Eliza. It started with a used sewing machine for $30 bucks and a desire to create with a new medium that I had envied so many others who had the talent. It has been a journey full of joy, excitement, utter frustration, challenges and victories. The memories of my mother sewing my Halloween costumes or making quilts for new parents is very much still vividly etched into my mind. I used to look through all her sewing notions and wonder what on earth they were all used for. Now I know :)