Conquering the Collar

One night this week, Angelo came home and carried his bike in to the kitchen. You know he’s had a bad day when he comes home and brings her inside. It means she’s been acting up, and he’s going to have to spend the whole evening setting her right.

As I was doing the dishes and listening to the faint cling-clanging of tools to bike, I started to think about my current disaster in the sewing room. I asked him, “What do you do when you don’t know how to fix your bike?” There was a pause. He didn’t understand the question.

I rephrased: “What DID you do when you first started riding, and didn’t know how to fix your bike?” He said that he just worked it out, tried to get it fixed to the best of his abilities. Usually, things worked out.

I nodded. It made me feel bad about my shirt. I had not made any progress in a long time, mostly because I would get frustrated after five minutes and walk away.

Then I remembered why I was making this shirt. I was using it for practice. I had picked a second hand curtain material because I didn’t care about the “finished product”.

So I finished tidying up, and walked up to my sewing machine. There it was, draped all haphazardly on the table. The shell of a shirt. I read my instructions, reread them, read them aloud, using hand gestures to further explain the steps to take.

I pinned my collar stand to the shirt. I ironed everything all the time. I triple checked right sides together and seam allowances. I just banged it out to the best of my abilities.

And after a little while, My shirt had a finished collar:

And I smiled. Ear to mother-effin’ ear!