March 2023

Buzzed Boomer Senior Contributor Old Man Wrong is back describing a new-found skill with his usual wit and… wisdom.

Sew What

Ever try a sewing machine? A 13 yr-old of mine begged for one so went to Joann’s, went for it (cheap!), watched a couple chippie YouTube videos and…that was kinda it. She can thread needles like a champ but the actual sewing involved an actual machine, parts, tools, maybe stapling your pinkie to a metal plate. Not really her bag right now, so the machine went into storage.

I have hand-sewed a little over the years, buttons mainly. Not that hard: You get somebody to thread your needle – ok there’s a little threader thing, which works – and poke through the little holes in the button and go around and around 192 times (stabbing your finger 7), tie it off, snip snip, wahlah. Button on.

My mom did not teach her sons how to sew, whose did? Now and then you’d find her in front of the black Singer with the gold lettering, heavy as an anvil, gas pedal under the table. She worked out of a black fold-top box filled with mysterious old-world items like thimbles, needles and pins, pin-cushions, scissors of various lengths and blade types (I dug the zigzaggers aka pinking shears – maybe from the Pinking Shears Corp.? https://www.waltergrutchfield.net/pinking.htm), even the machine itself was stored inside. It smelled like 1898 in there. She mended clothes sometimes, I assume for amusement. I know she sewed a dress or two from ‘patterns’ for my sister, who pretty much hated them. It was the early 70’s and tasteful dresses were decidedly out. I never paid much attention to any of it.

~50 yrs on and the shower curtain is too long. Essential books can be banned, Russia can re-Sovietize, baseball can have a clock but the shower – that sanctum of peace and refuge – is sacred space. Respect it. Unlike phone chargers, shower curtain sizes are standard. All 2 of ‘em. One size for wide/bath, one size for stall. Same length. If your curtain’s too long it sits in the wet tub/tile post-la douche, and stuff grows under there. No good. How to shorten it? You can’t run a shower curtain through a table saw and even if you could, table saws don’t hem (yes, the curtain’s gotta be cloth; a cloth liner is also nice). Cut and sew is the only way. Hand sewing would take 18-24 months. But The Machine! Alright, feeling like maybe learning something new for once this decade, I set up the machine. 

It’s a Singer but it weighs less than the cat. A lot of plastic on the outside. But the works are stainless steel. Everything fits. I’m thinking the inner parts have been the same for a very long time, pre-Boom even. I’ll cut to it: with machine sewing, the thing either sews, or you get a pile of gnarled thread and everything is stuck. I swore in the presence of my children, rethreading the +&*X<>#$ thing for the 10^th time. I used the wrong scissors. But I got a taste of what golfers say they get when they hit one right. Tack-a-tack-a-tack-a-tack-a-tack-a-tack-a-tack-a-tack-a-tack-a-tack-a-tack-a. A seam. 

Here’s some evidence of the project. But I can’t show you the beautiful curtain hanging so comfortably now, right above the tiles – it’s sacred.

-Old Man Wrong