“Sewing mends the soul.”  ~ Author Unknown

Late last year, while I was up to my elbows in sewing school uniforms for a few local schools for the beginning of the school year this year, I happened to get a phone call one day that had me buying myself an early Christmas present.

I have subscribed to a craft magazine for some years now, and the company was offering their subscribers a deal “too good to refuse”. I must say I was sceptical and had no intentions of buying whatever they had on offer.

So, the spiel began, I half listened. A few words caught my attention, fat quarters, sewing lamp, quilt wadding, scissors, sewing box….usual price ~ a trillion dollars, but for you today ~ dirt cheap.

“Would you care to repeat that?” I asked the very patient sales woman, as I apologised for being preoccupied with having so much work to get through.

She obliged, I did the mental sums; this was a great deal! And I rarely spend money on myself, and these were items that I would get a lot of use out of….

I’m not sure if the sales woman did a good job of convincing me that I had to have these items, or if I convinced myself. Regardless, I hung up the phone after exchanging pleasantries with the friendly woman on the other end of the line, feeling quite excited about my unexpected purchase.

A few days later, (which seemed like such a long time as I really was looking forward to my purchase arriving), two large boxes arrived at the post office.

It was so much fun looking through my newly purchased craft items, but back then was not the time to be lingering over them, I still had work to get through. It is only this week that I have finally unpacked the boxes and found homes for all of my new sewing necessities.

Let me tell you, I’m not a woman who gets overly excited over new clothes and shoes. I like to wear comfortable clothes, mostly jeans and tops that are made of soft fabric, and around home I usually go bare foot, except during cooler weather when I wear my fluffy deep pink “ugg” boots. But give me two boxes of newly purchased craft and sewing bits and bobs and I’m in seventh heaven!

The last time I received a new sewing box was for my tenth birthday. My sister gave it to me and it was the last birthday present I ever got from her, as shortly after my birthday she joined a religion which does not celebrate birthdays, so my old sewing box is something I have treasured for many years, although it is rarely used now. Instead, I use pretty tins that once contained biscuits, or old chocolate boxes to store my sewing treasures. I even use an old tobacco tin that once contained my dad’s pipe tobacco!

Unfortunately the nostalgic odour of dad’s pipe tobacco is long gone now, making it easier for me to part company with an old memory and make way for my new sewing box, a part of my super-beaut buy!

It is a stained wooden box with a padded hinged lid and one single drawer underneath. Both the top section and the drawer are partitioned, to keep small sewing paraphernalia separated and neatly ready for use.

All that was missing was that each section needed to have a lining, to give it a more homey feel, so I searched through my stock of felt pieces and found two pieces of lilac coloured felt and one deep purple, which would suit the colour of the wood beautifully.

So today, I fiddled and measured and cut and glued, then sorted old tins and boxes, finally arranging all of my needles, tape measures, pins, elastic, scissors, and everything else that had been in something of a muddle for years, into my new sewing box. I hadn’t thought these things to be in a muddle though, not until I saw the end result of my labour today, with everything so organised.

With the shelves beside my sewing machine in my sewing cupboard all cleared off and cleaned, I arranged everything back onto the shelves, and now I’m all set to go!

What I’d really like to hear about now is this ~ do you have a hobby that makes your heart sing, one which you can become so engrossed in that you lose all track of time, almost as if you were a child again and had just discovered your favourite toy to play with?

I think that everyone should have at least one hobby that can brush away all the cares in the world.

I know that I have several, but they are stories that will have to wait for another day. 🙂

“Me thinks it is a token of healthy and gentle characteristics, when women of high thoughts and accomplishments love to sew; especially as they are never more at home with their own hearts than while so occupied.”  ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Marble Faun, 1859