The relationship between my sewing time and my emotional state is a close one; I have long joked that sewing is much cheaper than therapy and has fewer calories than chocolate. Sewing helps me to unwind and relax; it can even relieve a minor headache. When I go in my sewing room, I deal with no one’s mess but my own. No one piles their things on my sewing table; no one takes my things out and leaves them laying around (Baby Boy being an occasional exception as my room has no door). In short, my sewing room is my own; I can put things in order and trust that they will stay in order. I do share my room with Twirly Girl, but she has her own corner so that I don’t look at her mess while I am working.
Sewing allows me to do things that stay done. I mop my kitchen and someone tracks in mud; I cook meals and the family is hungry a few hours (or less!) later; I bandage a scraped knee and another child begins to cry. But when I make a dress, I have something lovely to wear on Sunday morning for several years. When I make a little pair of blue pajamas, I can watch them get handed down from brother to brother to brother. Clothing does eventually wear out (or get outgrown), but the knowledge that I made something useful and attractive lives on in photographs as well as memories. When I succeed, especially with a complicated pattern, I have proved to myself that my brain does still function, even on the days I call every child by the wrong name and forget to thaw the meat for dinner.
Sewing is also my creative outlet. I cannot draw, but I can play with line and color as I create an outfit that is pleasing to the eye. I can follow the directions, or I can take a pattern and alter it to suit my own purposes. I can create and wear my own style regardless of what is “in” this season, and I can create clothing that lets my children express their own styles and personalities. I can also be frugal by using what I have or what is readily available (sometimes reusing a garment or other cloth object), spending my time rather than my money to fill a want or need for my family. And for me, time in my sewing room is almost always time well spent.
