If I had a pic of The Commander’s vintage black and gold sewing musheen, I would post it but I’m pretty sure I don’t so you get this old Blue Terlet pic instead. Don’t worry. The Blue Terlet is gone but the sewing musheen still exists. It lives at the moomincabin. At one point I floated the idea of moving it out of the moomincabin living room. I wasn’t going to get rid of it. I WOULD NEVER DO THAT! It is the sewing musheen on which I learned to sew. I was just thinking of moving it to a more hospitable climate and freeing up a little space there. That idea was shot down quite handily by the beach urchins. “That’s part of the cabin, yada yada yada.” Okay, I give. I’m still a bit skeptical that spending the winter in a six-month hard freeze is good for a sewing musheen but I suppose the other appliances have survived that for many years so why not a sewing musheen.

That sewing machine (Mrs. Pratt and Mouse are sitting on my shoulder making me switch to properly spelled English words) was one of the first things my parents bought after they got married, down in the southwest, during WWII while my dad was a flight instructor in the Army Air Corps. Comparing that to Radical Betty and Duke’s 1st anniversary purchase, which was a small boat motor, I think The Comm (my mom) made out okay. Although I do have to qualify that Radical Betty was not a seamstress and every time she told the story about the boat motor, she laughed like crazy and so did the rest of us. He gave me a boat motor! He gave me a boat motor! Duke was a career Air Force guy and they were stationed in Biloxi, Mississippi at that time, which probably wouldn’t have been Betty’s first choice to live but she was always game for everything. Oh, how I miss Betty.

My mother was a talented seamstress and I wasn’t too bad at it. I sewed a lot of my own clothing as a teenager but nowadays (yawn) I just order stuff online. Still, I can use a sewing machine if I need/want to.

My mother had a second career as a home-ec teacher. She taught people how to use sewing machines and do some cooking things but she also opened a *store* inside our brand-new high school and instituted a child care class that included a couple weeks of on-site day-care/pre-school. This was in 1970 when I was still in high school. (TMI: it was cool to have my moom there at school because she had aspirin if I needed it. For you probably know what.)

I cannot figure out why sewing skills seem to have been degraded to “womens work” or “not STEM education”. Sewing clothing/quilts/whatever involve HUGE mathematical and engineering components. Not to mention the artistic component that so many of our politicians seem to be missing. I loved this Scottish bar-sewing article that my BFF sent me this morning.

I do think that technical education is important and that kids should learn math and science. I just think that we should not just shluff off the things that women are more likely to do (like sewing) as “art”. Sewing can be art but it also requires a lot of technical expertise.

I think I had more to say about this but the GG came home from the yooperland and we walked over to Knight’s for dinner and I am about done done done at this point.

Love y’all and g’night. KW

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