Amy!

My beautiful, talented, and generous friend and neighbor, Amy Kilpatrick, embroidered these adorable tea towels for me. I love them to pieces and now she is going to teach me how to embroider – believe me, that is a friend!

I think I may have mentioned before that I actually failed 8th grade home economics. It’s true! Although I naturally did well in the cooking arena, I evidently did not do a whiz-bang job in the kitchen clean-up category and I could not sew worth a darn. Our project that year was to sew an outfit from scratch. I was petrified – ask me to create a soufflé or beef Wellington from scratch and I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. But tell me that my grade depends on sewing a dress, from a pattern, with yards of fabric, using a sewing machine – Dear Lord, you may as well tell me to rebuild an airplane engine!

My mom and I went to Hancock Fabrics and picked out a pattern for a maxi dress (remember those?) that I planned to wear to the 8th-grade dance. I found some pretty patterned fabric and matching thread and was actually kind of excited. I proceeded to cut out the pattern pieces and pinned them to the fabric. Have I mentioned yet that my mom made most of her own, my sister’s, and my clothes? No? Sorry, that’s right, she was quite a seamstress. Below is a picture of the three of us in one of our many, many, too darn many, matching ensembles from Christmas 1972.

She told me not to begin cutting until she checked it. Of course, it was all wrong, the pattern of the fabric going every which way. She explained where I went awry and told me to unpin and redo it all. I did … and many hours later, called her in for her stamp of approval. Still wrong! Tears flowed, yelling and more crying ensued … let’s just say that after weeks of trying to make that damn dress, I gave up! My mom finished it just in time for the dance and went directed to my teacher and told her exactly that. Fail!

I hated the dress and all it stood for, and never wore it again after that dance. Sorry, Amy – now you know what you’re in for … so I’ll just say, “Thank you, in advance.” I also profusely apologize to my very beautiful sister, Sloane, for posting this picture of her. xoxo