Old So-and-So Sews



If we say NO to learning technology, the threat is to become
an Old So-and-So unable to even turn off a light.

Excuses for not learning new technology:  

• So-and-So does that, I don't. My teenager does that, I don't. Or flatly, I don't do any of that (as if it's an accomplish?)
• I haven't had needed that for forty years, why do I need it now?
• I don't want Old So-and-So to find me on Facebook after all these years.
• I don't want people to know all my business.
• It's so boring; who cares that a friend of mine stood in line at Wal-Mart?
• I don't know how. I don't write. I don't take pictures. etc.
• I have bad eye-sight at can't see all that little stuff.
• What a Big Waste of Time. Three hours goes by and I haven't accomplished anything.
• I've got better things to do.
• What do I need that for?
• There's all those broken-home stories of people finding another online and running away.

Like James Owen says, "If you really want to do something, no one can stop you; but if you really don't want to do something, no one can help." So there's the trouble, you don't really want to do it. I don't either.

During the Rain Delay of the tennis tournament this weekend in Huntsville, Alabama, we visited friends Laurel Best and Art Abdinor. He gave me half the excuses on this list of why he isn't on Facebook. I just nodded, because I have already heard all of them before, mostly from myself.

It continued to rain, so they showed me there love of quilting. Quilting is an old-fashioned thing to do, so there's no danger of me having to learn that. My biggest aversion is the pokey scary needle and then the machine itself with all it's button and nobs and fast moving parts - the giant arch nemesis since middle school. The teacher should have flunked me in Home-Ec, but she soooo wanted rid of me that she passed me on.

Two months into the school year and I never got passed the needle (that new-Fandangled technology; who needs it!). I have poor eye sight and even if I put my face straight up to that thing, i can't see that little hole to string. My hands are kind of big and not built for delicate work. And then there all those hours and hours of wasted time, with nothing to show for it. Even if I get it threaded it bunches into glumps, and then that scary stringy Bobbin thing underneath - have no idea what the heck we have to have that? Hate the word Bobbin. despise it entirely.

Don't sew. Never have. Never will. Plus, I can finagle some cheap sweater at Kohl's for hundreds cheaper, so why do I needs it?

And, I don't need to learn to sew in my YoT (YearOfTechnology). That's not in the contract because it's not computers or anything the younger generation is all about.

In a fit of "I'll prove to you how bad I am at sewing," I bang the table and declare, "Yes, I want you to teach me to Sew!"  You do know, I mean "NO. Hell NO."  I hope Art really hears that part. He doesn't - he hears the first part. We head over to their sewing machines.

This will put closure on this Dreaded Sewing issue Forever, for Once and For All! I CANNOT SEW. I thought of Susie. Susie doesn't sew. She doesn't do that! I don't do that! We don't SEW. Get it!
 

All these Scary buttons and a needle speeding toward my fingers that I can't see!

 

I sat before the sewing machine with heart beating as if I was placing my person in a cockpit to be shuttled into space.



I've changed my mind!

But Art speaks to me gently.

The machine is all set up, but Art undoes it all. NOOOOO!

Stop this thing! I DON'T SEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Scary poky things that stick you and make you bleed. Broken needles on metal planks. The teacher ignoring you like you're a troll put down on this earth to vex her. Soft paint brushes is more Your speed.

Threading the eye of the needle. Art continues to tell me to follow the string along this line and then over there, etc. There are little pictures that actually show where the thread goes. And then get this. there's a little flap that strings the needle for you. New technological sewing machines do the work. I don't have to put my face right by the needle and thread it. Apparently, this is even an old machine; Laurel's does even more.

After the threading - I actually threaded a sewing machine! - it took about half hour -  I make my first stitch! It's all crooked but beautiful. We make two more lines. It looks like a pocket. Ideas for my tennis JunkArt journal; I could sew pockets for the signed tennis cards. Hey, wait a minute, I'm not suppose to be having fun, I'm suppose to be proving that I can't do this.
In my glee, the strings get tangled up in a glump, and we've lost our threaded needle. Art doesn't yell at me, he shows me some tools and how you undo things when they go wrong. We line everything up again and start over. Really, I thought you just threw the machine and all the stuff out the window and head to Belks.

Art is forcing me to actually do the work. Their fabulous quilt is behind me.

No one got stabbed. Actual success! I see a purpose in my life to sew. I can incorporate many things in JunkArt Journals. I may even buy a cheap sewing machine and/or get Melanie to help me learn more during Craft Day! She sews.

Love all the colors of their quilts in the making.

My brain feels like it's been to the moon and back. But, I'm proud that I learned how to sew.

Laurel holds up Art's work in progress.

Now we're talking Naieva Bookist's language!
Indeed a purpose to SEW!
Making purses from Old Books.


I tell Art that he can chat with us on Facebook. He tells me, "I don't do that!"
Well, I didn't use to sew and that was a much bigger step for mankind.