TJ Hirst

Picture a sobbing sewer, hunched over her machine, trying to lift the needle out of the fabric and unbunch the wad of threads that have become a tangled mess underneath. I call for help and whine through my explanation to whichever sewing mentor happens to be in my life at the time.

This scene and at least a hundred more just like them make up the sewing experiences of my life. I would love to say that this was sewing experience #10, but it wasn’t. It happened this weekend.

My first sewing mentor was my patient mother who reared seven children, still sewed prom dresses for us and encouraged us to develop the skill ourselves. I never really made it past the misshapen shorts I sewed to wear to camp. Inevitably, something  would always need to be unpicked and resewn. Whenever my current sewing project would exasparate me, I exclaimed that I would have to raise seven children to develop the patience to sew.

I believed I could enventually overcome the frustration I felt every time I sewed. So, I didn’t give up and tried to have at least one sewing project—pillows, aprons, or something else—per year to keep practicing. But time increased between projects and I eventually stalled, just as my son became a Cub Scout and had a real need for me to sew on his badges. This weekend I unwrapped his new Boy Scout shirt and he asked, “Mom, can you keep up with my badges this time?”

My sister-in-law, Tina, assured me I can do it. And others have reassured me that I can get the adhesive when I fail. With one last inspiration from Rebecca’s post on sewing at Thrilled by the Thought, I stuck my foot to the pedal and tried once again.

My opening sob story describes my results. Who would make a completely round badge to be placed centered over a pocket? Have you ever sewed on a round badge? How is that supposed to work?

Ironically, my daughter who learned to sew a skirt last year with no help from me, became my sewing mentor who held my hand, threaded my needle, wound my bobbin, and helped me pick out my mess. And when the needle continually became stuck in one badge, she kindly pointed out that the adhesive iron-on backing caused the needle to stick. WHAT????

We ironed out my weakness this time, but the question is, will there ever be a next?

Social (synonyms: companionable, convivial, gregarious, sociable) The central meaning of these adjectives is inclined to, marked by, or passed in friendly companionship with others.

My husband is an introvert, and I am an extrovert. My children line up in different ways around us. My teenage daughter, who is more like her dad, and I have a new opportunity to interact in social settings with her beyond our family, and it causes me to ask myself about sociality and personality. A friend confessed that she and her husband are both introverts, which surprised me because she initiates conversations and keeps them going with friends and strangers alike. But she said they worked really hard at being extroverts.

Neither being an introvert nor an extrovert is preferable. But we all need to interact in the communities we circulate. Social skills are the way we do that successfully.

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My husband and I were reading in the evening. I would occasionally look up from my book and start an impromptu conversation with him over the day’s happenings. After one explanation of an exchange with someone that day, I wondered out loud over the meaning of the words in that conversation.

I looked over at him and realized he was just reading. Feeling a little silly just talking to myself, I stopped. He is probably uninterested, I thought. But still, I went searching for the reason why.

“Women talk about feelings,” I said. “Don’t men do that?”

“We do,” he said. “We just don’t give the play-by-play, blow-by-blow, minute-by-minute account.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Analyzing is a woman thing,” he said.

A few minutes elapsed. I looked up from my book, again, and on a different topic I randomly said, “Why does my body’s full sensor not register until an hour after I’ve overeaten?”

“I don’t know why,” he said.

Realizing I was setting myself up as an example of what he had just concluded, I said, “There I go analyzing something again. I didn’t mean you had to answer my question.”

“Why don’t you just say rwhy instead of why so I know you mean a rhetorical why?” he said.

In a fitting end to the school year, we sent our children off to the bus stop
only to have one daughter come running back and yelling,

“My flip flop fell down the drain. I was just walking and it fell.”

Flip

It just fell, right off her foot, through the storm drain grate and down eight feet.

Flop

After school, they fished it out.

I spotted a silly spectacle on the corner of an intersection here in Brainerd, MN. A piggy-bank pink ox with a Minnesota state quarter descending into its back stands in front of the Brainerd Savings and Loan Association.

More than 20 oxen in colors and patterns beyond the blue of Paul Bunyan’s companion ox, Babe, have appeared to adorn the lawns and fronts of businesses with public art throughout our area.

The Oxtrot, “An Oxpedition of Art in the Lakes Area,” is a cooperative partnership between our local arts organization, the Crossing Arts Alliance, the Brainerd Lakes Chamber and artist, Josh Porter, of Avalon Studios, who designed the original sculpture based on Babe statues in the Brainerd Lakes area.

This particular ox—the first ox I saw—surprised me with his stare at the stoplight. His clever design lightheartedly acknowledges the business it represents while echoing some of the historical and mythical heritage of Minnesota in this sesquicentennial year of statehood. He is known as “Babe’s Bank is Best,” and the finish artist for this statue is Josh Johnson.

My impression is that they look quite a bit like over-sized lawn ornaments with the same kitschy connotations. However, they do create a stir of creativity and fun for area residents and tourists. My children are already counting the ones they’ve seen and creating plans to see them all. Even without knowing about the “Find Babe” campaign or reading Babe’s blog, they said, “it will be a treasure hunt for us to see how many we can find.”