I had an odd request from my mother yesterday. She asked me to thread her a needle. It might not seem odd to you, but my 96-year-old mother is blind and hasn’t sewed anything in almost twenty years once she started going blind. What’s odder still is that I found out today is National Thread the Needle Day. How odd that the first time my mother wanted a needle threaded in twenty years was also the day before this unique “holiday.”
Before I was born, my mother used to sew all the time before she started working full-time. The last outfit that I remember her sewing was a blue satin ball gown for me to play in. Always a girly girl herself, she wanted her last daughter to be one as well. She got me instead and the satin gown got covered in dirt and blood and was thrown out after one day. I think about that gown sometimes. I think about how disappointed she must have been when I put it on and went outside to play with the trucks in the dirt. That was the last time I remember her sewing any outfit. She still kept up with fixing everyone’s hems, putting on patches and sewing up holes, but no more complete outfits. Instead, she gave her sewing machine to my sister when she moved into her own apartment.
I did learn embroidery from my mother (yes, I know it’s girly, but it was calming.) Alas, there were no French knots or running stitches in my embroidery, to my mother’s disappointment. Instead, I strictly used the satin stitch and created pictures, not patterns. I don’t think she ever understood that one.
Mom collected buttons too. You never had to worry that a button would fall off because she always had one to replace it. They were stashed in an old Maxwell House coffee can and I used to love dumping them out and sorting through them. With two older brothers, there was a lot of rough housing and buttons went flying on a regular basis. Mom would sit at the end of her bed with her trusty sewing basket and the coffee can of buttons, looking for the perfect one to sew back on.
Yesterday, once I threaded her needle, I put it in the pin cushion that’s always been on the top of her bureau. The pin cushion is about a foot long and held pins and needles and sometimes beloved pins that she liked to wear on a regular basis. Why store them away when she could just pin them to the cushion and wear again?
After I was done, mom then asked for her sewing box so she could see where everything was—which was an even odder request. I told her so and she said she wanted to feel it and make sure that everything was there. After removing the needles so she wouldn’t poke herself, I gave her the basket and she felt around. She marveled at the amount of thread she had. She found an elastic and said that was good because she didn’t know if she would have to fix her pants in the fall. After she was done, she had me put the sewing box back in her closet, in the same exact spot it’s been all these years.
I remember the last time she hemmed my pants. It was a couple of years before Dad died, back in the 90’s. She had me stand on the dining room table so that she could pin the hem as I spun around. It was an oft-repeated pattern for all her kids growing up, but I think I was the only one that could still stand on the table as an adult and not get serious head or neck damage from the ceiling. She was losing her sight to macular degeneration then, but she was determined to hem my pants because she didn’t like the way they dragged on the ground.
She was always getting after me about my hems and how my shirts looked in the back. To this day, she always pulls down my shirt….how she can see that it’s up is beyond me. Does this mother just know her daughter too well?
At 96 (she’ll be 97 in August,) I don’t know how many years I still have left with my mother. One thing I know for sure is that it will be an interesting, and sometimes odd, trip.
This is lovely! And “thread the needle day” I feel a little weird reading about your mother and thinking about the inuendo…
But which one?
What a beautiful story! It brought back such wonderful memories for me of my own mom who sewed Barbie doll clothes for me (what tiny, tiny armholes!) and also kept a button tin, and now I do too!
My mother also saved buttons. When she died, she had a gallon jar and another large tin of buttons. IIt’s amazing what you find buried amongst all the buttons … I found an envelope with $1300.
Wow. Makes you wonder if she was saving for something or if she misplaced it and has always wondered where it went.
How lucky you are to have your mom and how lucky she is to have lived so long and seen so many things. God bless her. And you.
She will be 98 in August and we recently moved in with her to take care of her.
Awwww, Jennifer. This really touched my heart–maybe because my mom still sews a ton?
🙂
Thanks. It’s great that your mother is still sewing in her 70’s.
Oh how lovely Jennifer and I feel envious you still have your mum. Here’s to more special times for you both. x
Thanks Sue. We recently moved in with my Mother. At almost 98, she’s slowing down and needing more and more assistance.
Ohhhh so sweet on so many levels, Jennifer! ❤️ Your mom was blessed with you! Twenty years ago, my mom reupholstered her sofa, her last big project. She passed 15 years ago. I still have the needle threaded with the thick blue button string she used to sew in the buttons. It’s stuck into my turquoise and yellow puffy cushion my daughter made me. I can’t part with that button string my mamas busy hands touched…
What a wonderful keepsake and memory to have. People think it’s the jewelry or the silver, etc. that will bring them meaning after someone passes. It’s not. It’s the little things, like the button string or the can of buttons or even a special book that will carry the most memories.
Yes, I parted with so many big things, but a few little ones carry so many memories. Thank you for your lovely post about your mom…so many memories to share!
This made me swallow hard – very touching. I have these kinds of moments with my mum and dad too and I always feel so emotional knowing it is the winter of their lives now. My sister and I are finding that looking after our parents in their 90s is such a bitter sweet experience. The memories you have shared here are evocative of a world that seems to have gone now (in the UK that is, have no idea about the US). I know my parents feel quite lost and confused about today’s world and they really only see it through TV. They seem to long for the ‘old days’. Maybe that what your mum was doing when she wanted to feel her familiar old sewing items.
I think it’s more difficult for my Mother because of her blindness. She can’t truly watch TV. She only watches baseball and basketball games because the announcers tell her what’s happening on the field. She can’t see what’s on the computer or she might try to have her own FB account. In this time of ultra connectedness, she is more disconnected from the world than ever. So yes, she is trying to connect to an older time. She is also trying to be in control of her environment. So everything Chris or I put in her “space” since we’ve moved in, she has to mull over. Then she decides whether she will “accept” it in her space or not. There’s been a lot of “nots.” We indulge because we know how difficult it must be for her.