I unboxed my sewing machine yesterday. (Not in the YouTube sense but in the sense that I removed it from its shipping container.) I was relieved to see a pre-wound bobbin already snugged up in its little sarcophagus. I suck at bobbins. I’ll have to address it at some point but I have never been good at it and I dread it, to be honest!
I grew up with two sewing machines: My dad’s (he’s an upholsterer) and my mom’s. She hasn’t used hers in a long time, but she used to make all of my Halloween costumes. I also remember her quilting and making other things for the house, like the Christmas tree skirt we used for years.
The machine at my dad’s shop is industrial and not for playing around, but I was allowed to mess with the machine at home. Mostly I made pillows and “sleeping bags” for my dolls. It’s been so long since I touched a sewing machine, but the muscle memory came back to me. My hand somehow remembered to reach back and lift the foot so I could turn the fabric, or to use the handwheel to get the needle up. I’ve never been highly skilled at sewing but I managed to finish a face mask in less than 30 minutes once I got going.
A lot of my quarantine anxiety is going to be directed into face mask production for the time being. I’ve scavenged the house for bits and pieces of cotton fabric (mostly odds and ends of Etsy stuff and a stack of bandanas, at this point) and I have some more coming in the mail. I really want to get a couple of masks to my parents ASAP as I hate the idea of them being at the grocery store, which they still insist on doing.
I don’t know about all of you but it is getting more and more difficult not to wake up and immediately feel the strangeness (and crappiness!) of what we are going through. I say this as someone who is enduring isolation in relative comfort and safety but as with anything else in life, there are no guarantees, and it’s hard not to end up thinking about that for a chunk of the day.
I’ve thought about this tweet a lot and while I wouldn’t say it’s “comforting” it has been grounding to some extent. There have been days where I have given up on accomplishing anything of note during work hours; I know I’m not alone in that. My brother-in-law and his wife are working in shifts so they can trade off child care, and then they both pick up their laptops after the kids go to bed and work until almost midnight. Truly, that anything is getting accomplished right now is mind-boggling. Whatever you’re managing to do, you’re doing great.
Like a lot of people, I am trying to dwell on small good things. This morning I made my husband discuss last night’s dinner with me because I want to draw out the enjoyment of anything fun or frivolous we do. (I am Half-Pint Ingalls going to town again.) There are no worries here about living an unexamined life, that’s for sure.