Few things are more painful than being a gardener without a garden, especially in August. Nothing to harvest, nothing to pickle or preserve, and I’m sorry, but the farmers market feels increasingly like highway robbery ($9.50/quart for wild blueberries? When I can get them for $4.50/quart at a roadside stand 10 minutes out of town?). So our mason jars will continue to be used for drinking glasses, and there will be no tomato sauce in my freezer this year, but in an effort to find something else to scratch the modern-homesteader itch, I’ve taken up sewing.
Ha, ha, HA. Yes, canning requires slaving away over multiple vats of boiling liquids during the peak of summer heat, it always demands more hands than you have (even when you have help), it turns your kitchen into a steamy, sauce-spattered war zone, dirtying every pot and spoon you own, and then there’s risk of poisoning by botulism if you aren’t vigilant. But lord if preserving isn’t a breeze compared to sewing so far. Because sewing requires math. Math! So far I have churned out a pillow and two “matching” curtains (of varying lengths), with three more curtains to come that I have been putting off until I’ve worked up the nerve again. Lou swears you can’t notice my off-kilter stitching on the ones already hanging in the living room, but still. It’s aggravating. Measure twice, cut once, right? My saving grace is the sewing machine itself, a vintage-y Montgomery Ward number that was unearthed in an elementary school basement (likely long forgotten after the days of home ec?) by Lou’s mother. The lady at the sewing machine repair shop laughed when I brought it in for a tune-up, and told me I’d be better off using it as a boat anchor. Because it’s all metal, save for the heavy-duty plastic cover, and weighs something like 500 pounds. But the joke’s on you, Sewing Machine Repair Shop Lady, because pressing the pedal on this baby is like driving your grandfather’s precious classic Cadillac: it just cruises, steady and slow, with nary a bump to be felt. And if I were better at math, better with numbers in general, I can only imagine the textiles I’d produce. Quilts! Aprons! Dresses?! Maybe it just takes practice? Cuz I’ve got a Maine winter around the corner, and no pickles to eat, so I’ve got all the time in world to work on my alternate homesteading skills. Until February, when the seed catalogs come.
