Our little baby bobbins

Soooo......I saw an ad for a TV show about people who are in love with inanimate objects. This woman was touching and kissing, of all things, a wall. Yes, you did read that right, a wall. It was a little disturbing but it got me thinking about what an inanimate object can mean to people. Clearly, there is some underlining psychological issue with the wall lady...but I'm the first to admit that I have kissed my sewing machine before. There, I said it. We're in love and we're running away to Mexico, where we will be joined together in holy haberdashery and live happily ever after with our baby bobbins.

Ok, I'm being silly (apart from the kissing the machine, that bit is true) but my point is that I never knew that using a machine would bring me so much joy. The thought of sitting at my machine after a long day and creating something from scratch makes my heart sing.

The first time I sat down in front of a machine was in November last year. I come from a long line of seamstresses, I remember in school holidays joining my Mum in the TAFE workroom while she studied fashion design and also playing with the (tailored!) barbie clothes that she and my Aunties made when they were little girls. My Aunty is a very in demand pattern maker who can look at a photo of an outfit and make a pattern from it - her talent is incredible. My Mum used to make us fake Mambo and Billabong clothes (actually, is that illegal? I'll have to delete that bit if the cops read this) and my god did I rock the gumnut baby jumper she made me - complete with actual gumnuts that had been drilled and attached to the jumper. My point is, that I have grown up being surrounded by handmade and it still surprises me now that it has taken me this long to discover it myself.

It was actually my Mum who bought me my first machine and as soon as I sat down in front of it, I whipped up a skirt. I have no idea how I was supposed to do it "properly" but the skirt is still in action and happily worn by one of Alby's little girlfriends. Isn't it amazing what you can do when no-one tells you that you can't? And I have never looked back. I'll always be grateful that my Mum never tried to force me into sewing. That she allowed me to find it on my own and that when I was ready, the timing was juuuuust right so that she would be the one to buy me my first machine. And to be able to bite her tongue while I haphazardly navigated my way around and figured out my own way of discovering the joy that is sewing.

That being said....I'm not above a bit of pushy parenting myself......

What? Someone has to keep Yumminess going when I go away on honeymoon with my sewing machine!