Sew Crazy

This skirt started it all.

Last fall, I had a bright idea. I thought that the young woman group in our church should make modest skirts and have a fashion show. It would be fun and give us a purpose in our activities. Without thinking too much about it I planned an activity to choose a simple skirt pattern. While planning the activity, I decided that I better make a skirt myself since I expected the young women to make one. This is when the difficulties began. I didn't have a sewing machine and I don't know how to sew. I looked for a sewing machine at a few local stores and couldn't find one. Finally, Jim's TA at work ordered a machine online. Ironically, it turns out the machine came from The States (I could have ordered it myself). To make the situation more complicated, it was stuck in Customs waiting for us to pay taxes and tariffs. When the machine finally arrived, it was the day before our activity to sew the skirts.
The activity was one of the most stressful days of my life. Remember, I don't know how to sew and there I was trying to sew on a machine I had never used, making a skirt I had never made. During the activity, one of the young women took my iron and pressed it against the wall. I have a nice burn mark on my wall to remind me of this great endeavor to make a modest skirt. Whew.
It took a few days to pick myself up off the ground from this activity. Eventually, I stepped back and asked myself, "how can I make this work?". I asked for help from some women at church that know how to sew. They very graciously agreed to help, me first with my skirt; and then the girls with theirs. About three months later we all had modest skirts that we had made.
Miriam, my eleven year old could not help but get caught in the sewing frenzy. She made herself a skirt while we made ours. She actually finished hers first and then helped that other girls make theirs. She enjoyed sewing so much that she decided to make a skirt for Anna and Margaret for Christmas. She made the tiered skirts for them. Gracie ended up borrowing a Simplicity pattern from a friend who helped her make her skirt. My skirt was a pattern out of a Scandinavian pattern book that I found from another friend. It is called the Gored Summer Skirt.
In the end, I needed tons of help and thanks to some willing expert seamstresses we finished our activity and I learned that Miriam loves sewing. She made it look sew easy.