I Did It My Way

When I was in sixth grade I took a home-ec class. Each nine week segment was something different. One was cooking, one was etiquette, one was awfully close to Sex Education, but not quite, and the other was sewing.
The first sewing project I had was an apron. I may have mentioned that in those days, almost all ladies made their own aprons.
I have also mentioned that I never was and am still not like my mother. Any thing she did, she had to do as close to perfect as she could manage. What I did was to get it done.
Well at home we had a Singer treadle machine. A treadle machine is run with your feet. Your right hand would have to be synchronized with your feet because the right hand would run the wheel backwards while your feet pumped like mad to keep it running. Your right hand had to jump right in and keep your left hand company to hang on to the cloth so the seam would be straight. Mine were never straight and my mother would make me rip them out and start over again. Any one that knows me, knows that my patience runs pretty thin when it comes to things like that. My mother knew that I was going to be taking sewing in school so she had to teach me some about sewing before I made a fool of myself. She had me sew two pieces of cloth together over and over until I had it mastered. The treadle machine had a long skinny bobbin that had to be filled to make the stitches hook on to the stitches on the top of the seam. It was put in a thing called a shuttle. She made me fill the bobbin over and over until I got that right.
Sewing class started at school and much to my surprise, they had electric sewing machines. They looked and worked nothing like the old treadle machine Mother had taught me on. I had to start from scratch.
Of course, I went home and told my mother about the school’s sewing machines. My mother had a habit, if she was upset, worried, had a headache, you had to choose one. If you were lucky you got it right. She rubbed her forehead until it got all red. She did that when she heard about the sewing machine. I don’t know how they did it, but they got Mom an electric sewing machine. I got a “C” on my apron. It didn’t make any difference whether I had an electric sewing machine or not, like the song says, “I Did It My Way.”