Some people say that Leap Day is when girls can ask guys to marry them. If the guy refuses, he owes the jilted girl twelve pairs of gloves so she can keep her wedding-ringless hand covered up.
Others celebrate St. Oswald who died on this day in 997.
I chose to commemorate this rare day by showing you my sewing wound.
No, I wasn't trying to sew my leg. I didn't get it caught in the sewing machine, either.
What happened is that since my sons got too "old" to put on my sewing projects for me to hem, or fit and pin, I just sew them by myself. I've tried "stuffing" my tenor saxophone case (trying to make it more round than rectangular) to use for a dress dummy, but it didn't work. So I just put my sewing project clothes on inside out and pin them with safety pins (it usually takes more than one try until they fit right.) Then I take them off and alter them on the sewing machine.
This works pretty well, UNLESS THE PINS POP OPEN. I got a four-bandaider scratch when this happened recently, but I didn't lose too much blood.
Having survived this painful encounter, I've wondered if I really even want to keep sewing clothes. I started as a teenager because it was hard to find things to fit a six foot tall fourteen-year-old in 1972. Still, sewing has served me well over the years in making unique, one-of-a-kind clothes that actually fit me, as well as clothes and toys for my sons, and even the backdrop for a community theater production. Over the years, I even wore out an all metal sewing machine.
But in the amount of life I have left, do I really want to spend it experimenting with fabric. thread and patterns when sometimes the things I make don't look as good in real life as they do in my head? I've even ordered some things from online tall store clearance sales.
The funny thing is, once I get them, I usually alter them on my sewing machine!
I'd better hang onto it.
