CHAPTER 1

THE SEWING ROOM

I have taken over a basement room in which someone who lived here before left aPing-Pong table. It is now my sewing room. The table is just the right heightfor me, and I can spread out the fabric on its expanse of dark green when I cutthings out. It's cool there in the summer, and quiet. I listen to the radio andwork away, and a flat piece of cloth takes on shape as I work, grows breast-shaped curves and hips, gathers itself into a waistband, to which I have addedan inch because I am fatter than I wish I were.

This activity uses resources seldom called upon in the rest of my life. Beyondbasic decisions about color, style, and fabric, there is little thought involvedin sewing. Clothing construction follows the same rules whatever the garment.You sew a seam and finish the edges. Right sides go together unless it saysotherwise. You press seams open, and darts toward the center or down. You do notargue with the seams about the degree of their openness, nor do you seek a dartconsensus about which way they want to be pressed. There are virtually no moralambiguities in sewing.

The outcome of a sewing project is never uncertain. I know in advance exactlywhat I will get, and I control all phases of production. When I finish, I canpoint to what I have made. In fact, I can wear what I have made, or put it on mygranddaughter and watch her parade in it. I can imagine my image of myself, orof her, and then I can make it real.

None of this bears much resemblance to the way I earn my living, which is byhaving meetings and deciding about things and evaluating things. Andcompromising about things, acting in situations in which I know in advance Iwon't get all I want. And talking to people on the phone. And listeningpatiently as people tell me things I already know.

After a week of this, I am ready for a change. I go down the basement stairs,feeling the earthen coolness coming up to meet me as I descend. And there in thesewing room is my brand-new machine, gleaming white in the dark. Hello. Toughweek? Never mind—let's make something, shall we?

I learned to sew on an ancestor of this sleek white beauty. She was blackenameled steel. She had beautiful gold filigree decorations, and an iron treadleattached to her balance wheel, which you ran with alternating feet instead ofwith a motor. She sewed forward and backward, period. She lived in a mahoganycabinet built just for her, and she was anything but portable.

The sewing machine was upstairs in my grandmother's sewing room, one of theattic rooms in the gable-crazed house we lived in when I was a girl. Bits offabric, rickrack, short pieces of lace, and spools of thread were everywhere.The linoleum was gray with yellow and pink flowers; here and there, a droppedstraight pin gleamed against it. Here my grandmother sat and made beautifulthings. And she taught me.

Back and forth I would sew, struggling to get the rhythm of the pedals right sothe wheel would turn smoothly. Learning to pivot. Learning to sew a curved line.Learning to make a dart. Learning to insert a zipper—two ways. Making mistakesand showing them to her. Ripping them out and redoing the work. And getting itright. My grandmother's eyes, with their crinkle at the sides. Her smile at myintentness, a smile whose dimple was still beguiling even though she was old.And her stories, while we worked, about the Swedish people in Minnesota where wecame from, about her brothers and sisters. About my mother when she was little.The attic room must have been hot in those pre-air-conditioned days, but I don'tremember it so. I remember it as a place of beauty and peace.

After my grandmother died and we moved, my parents bought me a sewing machine ofmy very own. She was electric. Though her body was also steel, it was not blackwith filigree but tan. Where her forerunner had feminine curves, she wasstreamlined, like the cars of her era. She sewed forward and backward, ofcourse, but she also made zigzags, large ones or small ones, fine enough tofinish a buttonhole. She could blind hem, catching up just a thread of a skirtand keeping the visible work on the underside where nobody could see. She wasportable if one were young and strong.

In the new house we had no sewing room. I sat in my bedroom and made rebelliousclothes. Bell-bottom trousers with plate-size flowers in red, white, and blue.Hip-hugger miniskirts with wide belts. Granny dresses, with high waists andnecks, in which I hoped to look like I was from London. No more summer storiesabout Scandinavian people in the Midwest: now the needle thump-thumped to theBeatles, to the Rolling Stones, to the Supremes, to the Beach Boys. Yeah.

But I didn't just sew for myself. I also sewed for my mother. It skips ageneration, my grandmother used to say, and in our family that was true. Whenshe grew too old to sew for my mother, I was old enough to start. My mothernever learned. And so the bell-bottoms and granny dresses were interspersed withother things: a bottle-green silk suit with lime-green lapels and a blouse tomatch. A pink silk nightgown with lace trim, which she left in a hotel once andmourned as long as she lived. A gray shirtdress with silver buttons. A whitecape with gold ones. And later my daughters joined the sorority: a christeningdress with twenty yards of embroidered ruffles. A green corduroy jumper withmushroom appliqués. A lavender gingham sundress with embroidered butterflies. Avelvet Christmas dress with red cherry trim. Corduroy...