February 1, 2019
Dear Everyone:
Happy Birthday, “Alice”! The
last of us to turn 60. The
end of an Era.
In other news…
Last year, around
Thanksgiving, “Jeannie” asked me what I wanted for
Christmas. I decided that a
new cotton flannel nightgown would be nice and sent her a link to the
website. At the time, it
came in about three colors and I told “Jeannie” that any one of them
would be very nice.
Come Christmas morning, I opened a package to discover that “Jeannie”
had bought me two full-length nightgowns, one in a red plaid and one in
a dark blue plaid. So now I
had two new nightgowns.
Of course, neither of them fit me, being longer than I am tall.
Seriously. I tried
one of them on Christmas morning and padded out into the living room to
show “Jeannie” and “Marshall”.
“Marshall” immediately pointed out how practical it was, since I
could sweep the floor as I walked, with the hem dragging several inches
behind me.
This is nothing new.
Whenever I get manufactured clothing, be it nightwear, pants, or
anything else that falls below the knee, I always have to whack at least
a half-foot or more off the bottom.
There was a time when I would just roll the pants up on jeans,
but I’m told that dressing like a two-year-old is no longer considered
“cute” once you pass the half-century mark.
Likewise, the sleeves were too long.
So that meant that I needed to shorten both the skirt and the
sleeves before I could begin wearing the two new nightgowns.
A couple of days ago, I dragged the
ironing board and
iron out of the
closet and into the living room.
I also brought out a three-drawer, wheeled cart that contains
most of the essential tools for sewing.
The first thing to do was determine how much to shorten the nightgown
skirt. This was easy, since
it didn’t have to be exact.
I simply laid the new nightgown on the bed, then laid one of the older
ones on top of it. Six to
eight inches looked to be good enough.
This made it easy. I placed
the lower part of the skirt on the ironing board, then placed a
sewing
gauge along the bottom of the hem.
Marked the top of the six-inch gauge with
tailor’s chalk, then
moved it down a few inches.
Repeat all the way around.
Then I clipped the fabric along the “dotted line”.
After that, I used the same gauge to fold up a half-inch of the
raw edge, holding it in place with many, many pins.
Then I pressed the whole bottom edge of the skirt.
Removed all the pins, and put them back in after turning the edge
up again, this time for one inch.
Just in case, I tried the nightgown on and found that the new hem was
now several inches above the floor, which made it safe for me to wear.
I also cut and pinned new hems on the (very) long sleeves.
By this time, the nightgown was ready to be sewn, but I was exhausted.
All that standing and bending at the waist was murder on my back.
I decided to wait until morning before continuing.
The next morning, I made some adjustments to the ironing board so that I
could work on the second nightgown while sitting in a chair.
Much better! By early
evening, I was ready to drag out the
sewing machine, which sits in its
own wheeled bag in the second bedroom.
Sewing is relatively simple.
But sewing machines have become very, very complicated.
Just consider the
stitch selection panel, with its 30-plus
choices. It’s enough to
intimidate a seasoned airline pilot.
I’ve had this particular machine for several years, but it’s been a
while since I actually used it.
I had to consult the “Instruction Manual” to remind myself how to
wind the bobbin and insert it into the appropriate orifice (pages
14-17), then feed the thread through the machine and so on.
After that, as any experienced seamstress can tell you, the speed of
sewing the new hems in place was only limited by the number of pins in
use. Too few pins and there
is a risk that the fabric will be pulled out of alignment by the stress
of moving over the sewing plate.
Too many pins and you have to stop every quarter-inch to take out
a pin.
Never leave a pin in the fabric as it goes under the sewing needle.
If the two come into contact with each other, you get a bent pin
and/or a broken needle. And
those needles are pricey. So
you have to stop at each pin and pull it out before proceeding.
Nevertheless, in a few hours I had finished the job and now have two new
nightgowns, bringing the total number of cotton flannel nightgowns to
eight. Now I can wear a
fresh nightgown every night for a week before they need to be laundered.
Why so many? Consider:
You spend approximately one-third of your life sleeping in bed.
Or not sleeping, but still in bed.
That’s about eight hours.
You spend about eight hours in school or at work each day.
Would you wear the same clothes to work on Tuesday that you wore
on Monday? And Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, and so on?
Unless you’re a teenage boy, the answer is “No”.
Then why would you wear the same
pajamas,
nightgown, extra-large
T-shirt, whatever every night for a week or more?
Thus, it makes more sense to have a half-dozen fresh nightgowns,
pajamas, etc., or more, than to wash them every day, right?
Or one for each night of the week, plus one extra just in case.
When that chocolate
sundae accidentally lands in your lap is not
the time to discover that this was your last clean nightgown before
laundry day, right?
Love, as always,
Pete
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