Curtains: Doing the Things We Hate

3 July

Here’s the next story in my random word unschooling A-Z series. It’s my C story!

Whenever I sewed, a daughter would stand by my side, watching me feed fabric under the foot of my machine, frequently asking, “Is it nearly finished?” And then after I’d cut off the last loose thread, she’d squeal with delight as I handed her the new piece of clothing.

The scissors snipped, the sewing machine hummed, the needle oscillated up and down, and the rectangular piece of fabric became a unique swirling circle skirt, frilly tiered frock, or Christmas dress. It was magic.

Although my girls thought I had magical sewing skills, I didn’t. Sewing wasn’t my passion. It was hard work, and I didn’t enjoy it. I wasn’t even that good at it. I knew how to sew seams and hem raw edges. I could even make buttonholes and gather fabric into frills. But I often got frustrated when my seams didn’t line up, I sewed the wrong pieces together, or I got the tension wrong, and the bobbin thread became tangled.

So, where did the magic come from? It was my special sewing machine. It was fuelled by love.

My daughters grew up. They now order most of their clothes online. But occasionally, when they’re browsing webpages of skirts and dresses, they’ll say, “Do you remember that pink rose dress you made me on Christmas Eve?” or “Do you remember the full circle skirts that you sewed?” Do you remember how Mum made us clothes on her machine, fuelled by love?

Many years ago, instead of making clothes for my girls, I sewed some calico curtains for our family room. After lots of straight lines of stitching, I cut the last loose thread, carried the long, white, finished curtains from my sewing machine, slid them onto the rods, and hung them at the windows to block the strong summer sun. Standing back to admire my sunblocker creations, I saw, without surprise, that they were too long. Not wanting to unpick the hems and begin sewing again, I shrugged my shoulders and decided I could endure pools of fabric at the foot of the windows. I’d tell everyone that was the latest trendy curtain fashion.

One day, after months of sun duty, I took down the curtains to wash them. Later, bringing the curtains in from the outside washing line, I realised it was the perfect time to haul out my sewing machine and make them the correct length. But somehow I didn’t do this. Instead, I filed the clean, sunshine-scented crumpled curtains on a shelf in the cupboard above my machine.

For years, our family room windows have been bare. Summer sun pours in, baking anyone who’s sitting on the sofa. And I sometimes say, “I should iron the curtains, make them shorter, and rehang them,” but no one replies, “What a great idea, Mum!” so I know I won’t do this.

No one really cares about the curtains. They’re not important. Not like those pretty Christmas dresses, frilly frocks, and circle skirts that lit up little-girl eyes many years ago.

My sewing machine now hides in the linen cupboard beneath the abandoned curtains. It's like Sleeping Beauty, waiting for her Prince. One day, it might reawaken. Fuelled by love, my scissors will snip, my machine will hum, and the needle will oscillate as I create.

Love is powerful, isn’t it? Like magic, it motivates us to do the things we hate.

Things We Need to Do

We often have to do things we’d rather not do, don’t we? We might need to drag ourselves out of a deep sleep in the middle of the night to see to a child's needs, cook a family dinner at the end of an exhausting day, or wash a mountain of clothes before everyone runs out of clean socks. These are things we just have to do.

Things We Choose to Do

But there are also things that we could avoid doing-they’re not strictly necessary-because they don’t appeal to us. We might even hate doing them. But we choose to do them because they make a difference to those we love.

We might say, “I’ll play!” when a passionate gaming child expects us to say, “Video games aren’t my thing.”

We could choose to go to the cinema to see a Superhero movie, our least favourite genre, with our family, when we’d prefer to take off our capes, sink onto the sofa with a cup of coffee and read a cosy mystery book.

And we might drag out our sewing machines on Christmas Eve to make a pink rose dress that a daughter will remember forever.