This is a memory. I made this top from a FolkWear pattern. It is an authentic Egyptian Galabia sized down for women. But that’s not the memory. A while back I got up from an awkward position and heard the sound of fabric tearing. I had ripped part of the underarm and not on the seam. I really like this top. It’s comfortable and I made it from fabric I brought back years ago on a trip to Ghana. I took the top off and examined the tear. Then I hung it in my studio on the rack with all my other UFOs that I meant to deal with some day when I had time.
Today I went in and looked at the tear again. I suddenly remembered another favorite garment and another repair. When I was in graduate school in Nashville I was on a tight budget. I was still sewing my own clothes before taking a 20 year hiatus from the sewing machine. I had made a pair of tweedy looking pants that I really liked. One day I tripped coming down the stairs from my apartment and tore a hole in the knee of the pants. I was annoyed. I really liked those pants. Over the weekend I went home and complained. My grandmother, who lived with us, told me to bring the pants home. So the next weekend I did. Granny took the pants and very carefully darned the hole. The repair was invisible. I was stunned. I shouldn’t have been. Granny never used a sewing machine. She was a woman who could walk by a store window and see a dress, then go home and make a copy of it. She taught me how to make a garment completely by hand. I made a blouse like that. Later I went on to make clothes on the machine like my mother (another gifted seamstress). But I was always in awe of Granny. I kept those pants for years, and I like to think that when I sent them on to Goodwill another college girl found them and wore them.
This morning I carefully darned the tear under the arm of my shirt. It is not nearly as neat a job as Granny’s. I can hear her now saying “Baby, you know that don’t look right. You ought to take it out and do it again.” Maybe next time Granny. For now, I’m just glad to hear you in my head, and see you once again in my mind. Meanwhile, I’ll keep practicing.