Quaffs for Bad Crafters

Dear Reader,

I apologize for not providing you a recipe, but sometimes even food won't help and there is nothing to do but drink. Allow me to explain-

This week found me at my wits end, practically perched on my window ledge with a very heavy and unstable Singer Sewing Machine Quantum 2623.




When my son's teacher sent an email saying that she needed parent volunteers to sew together the pieces of a "Climate Quilt" the children made, I said, sure I can help with that! After all I made a beautiful quilt when I was pregnant with that very same son. That I was still making that quilt long after my daughter had been born, almost three years later, did not occur to me. I had imagined that other parents would help with the quilt also, so was therefore surprised when she handed me all twenty four squares.

Now a word on these squares. They were of varying fabrics, sizes and some were so loaded down with glue and felt and yarn and doo dads they were nearly an inch thick. Some of the glued on hearts and stuff were falling off. The first step was to go to a fabric store and buy some reinforcement in the form of Tacky Glue.

That done, I had my husband go down to the basement and lug up the old sewing machine. Luckily the last person to use that machine was my mother, who won the Singer Sewing Contest at the tender age of fourteen, so the thing was threaded correctly. I sewed together two of the squares in about four seconds. But then a snag. A literal snag. And the thread came out of the needle and lord only knows what was happening with the freaking bobbin and something was making a clunking noise. I called my mom, who was having friends over for dinner and not in the mood to help. Harumph.

I fiddled around with the machine for a while, and then I started to cry. I cried out of frustration, feeling like a failure, knowing that I have been shown how to work the stinking sewing machine about a hundred times and was completely useless at it, because I always volunteer to do stuff and this was exactly the kind of half-assed job I usually did. And I cried for the children of Caitlin's class, whose contribution to the global climate quilt was going to look crappy all because of me, and because it was going to take me three whole days to sew the thing by hand.

So I had a glass of wine and googled "How to thread a sewing machine." I was instantly provided with infuriating videos from smug and crafty ladies, like irritating Rebecca, and this one with totally annoying music that makes it impossible to hear what she's saying, and Natalie who just makes me feel entirely inadequate for myriad reasons. I cried some more and blamed my husband for buying me this impossible machine in the first place. What kind of sick Christmas present was this?

I had another glass of wine along with some deep breaths. I called my friend Heidi who can sew stuff in her sleep. She didn't answer. I polished off that glass of wine and poured myself another. I picked up two more squares and sewed them by hand, pricking my fingers because my vision was so obscured by tears and wine. Then Heidi called. Without even seeing what kind of sewing machine I have, she talked me through the entire threading process from start to finish. When I got it working and sewed some more stuff, I cried again and then had another glass of wine to celebrate.

And now, I actually like my sewing machine. I'm not sure when I will use it again, but thanks to Heidi, the Climate Quilt lives on!