LACK OF SEWING SKILLS BECOMES A NEEDLING ISSUE

Bill Ervolino E-mail: ervolino@northjersey.com
The Record (Bergen County, NJ)
01-16-2011
LACK OF SEWING SKILLS BECOMES A NEEDLING ISSUE
Byline: Bill Ervolino E-mail: ervolino@northjersey.com
Section: BETTER LIVING
Type: News

Tell me something: How are you with a needle and thread?

Brilliant? Awful? Or, just sew-sew?
If there's anything I like about this time of year, it's sweaters.

Brown ones. Gray ones. And, especially my new blue one, which I picked up last weekend -- 50 percent off! So many people have complimented it, I may live in it until Memorial Day.

Sweaters are neat-looking, slimming and, best of all, they cover up the sad truth that some of my dress shirts are missing buttons.

Three years ago, I spent four hours trying to sew a button back onto a rather expensive white shirt. I ran the needle and thread through this hole; then, that hole; then, up and down and all around, before tying it, knotting it ...

I don't think astronauts spend that much time fixing heat shields on the space shuttle.

When I was finally done, I put on the shirt, the button popped off and I kicked a leg off my coffee table.

(Amusingly, I fixed the table leg in 12 minutes.)

As you may recall, in Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn," the mischievous Huck disguised himself as a girl -- I'm pretty sure this was RuPaul's favorite novel -- a little deception he almost got away with, until the woman he was staying with saw him TRY to thread a needle.

It's something I can't do, either. And my embarrassing lack of ability in this area makes me feel lower than low, which may be appropriate, since the word "sewer" (a person who sews) is spelled the same as "sewer" (an artificial conduit used to carry waste water and garbage).

Because of this deficiency, I was thrilled a couple of years ago when I heard about "self-threading needles." In fact, I immediately went out and purchased several.

Unfortunately, I found them just as complicated as the regular ones. (To me, a self-threading needle should work thusly: You put the needle and thread on the counter, you go have a beer, you come back and everything is done.)

Apparently, growing up in a sewing environment -- my mother sewed constantly -- didn't help me in the least. To make extra money when I was a kid, she did "home work," which involved running rectangular sheets of some shiny, silky fabric through her enormous 800-pound machine in the basement. Every night.

Humm ... humm ... humm...

I fancifully assumed my mother was making haute couture dresses for the fashion-forward Jackie Kennedy. But, no. Those long shiny rectangles were fabric panels used to make umbrellas.

I dealt with this, though, lying to friends that my mother made snazzy umbrellas for Jackie, Lady Bird, Audrey Hepburn and The Penguin.

In those days, family conversations over dinner often revolved around faulty hand wheels and troublesome bobbins. But since we were boys, my brother and I were never taught the first thing about this particular craft.

With that in mind, I was intrigued last weekend when I caught the daily special on a home shopping network: A computerized "state of the art" sewing machine for just under $300.

During the broadcast, several people who already owned the machine called in to praise it. And they were all ... men.

This did not seem to surprise the on-air presenter, sewing expert Darlene Cahill, who, a few years ago, was a contestant on the DIY reality show competition "Wickedly Perfect." On that show, Cahill easily won the sewing challenges but she also excelled (to her own surprise) at building a wooden picnic table from scratch.

As Cahill later explained, building the table was just like sewing, except that she used wood instead of fabric.

If the Internet is any indication, plenty of men made this connection years ago. There are all sorts of online articles about men who sew, most of which stress that, traditionally, tailors were men.

One article, on the craft site helium. com, proclaims, "Men who sew are sexy! And, the better he sews, the sexier he lives!"

Wow. Who knew?

Still, sexy as I am, I can't sew a button on a shirt without bloodying the carpet.

Nowadays, most women I know don't sew, either. And I suspect those who do would glare at me if I tried recruiting them for button duty.

So naturally, I was fascinated by that fancy, pricey button- fixer I saw on TV last week. I even picked up the phone to order one, telling myself (before changing my mind), that "For just $300 I could get ..."

Yes! Six sweaters.

E-mail: ervolino@northjersey.com

2011