Tradition

I believe in traditions; I believe in the idea of things being passed between generations and the slow transmission of cultural values through tradition.
— Graham Moore

The human soul can always use a new tradition. Sometimes we require them.
― Pat Conroy

Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.
― Gustav Mahler

One of my favorite things to wear is an over-sized shirt over leggings, so Friday I finally broke down and bought a couple of big shirts I’ve been eyeballing for a while now. And like many people, I seldom try things on in the store, which is the only excuse I can come up with for not noticing the weirdness of their design.

The shirts had a shallow scoop neck in the front, and a vee neck criss-crossed with fabric straps in the back. Maybe it was fashionable, but it didn’t seem very practical to have your back exposed in a long sleeved, tunic length shirt. I tried one shirt on, but it just wasn’t comfortable. So then I tried turning it around so the vee was in the front, but the neckline plunged just a little too low.

Here's the thing. If I hadn’t tried the shirt on I would have never known how super comfortable it was and I would have just taken them both back and exchanged them for shirts with backs in them. But . . . I did try it on, and it was really, really comfortable, and I figured there had to be a way to make it work.

Of course there was. First, the criss-crossing straps had to go so I cut them off. Then I figured the only way to make the vee less plunging was to hitch it up at the shoulder. This meant cutting off the sleeves, taking about an inch and a half off at the shoulder, re-sewing the shoulder seams, and sewing the sleeves back on.

It might have been easier had my sewing machine worked better, but all in all it wasn’t all that hard. But it got me thinking about how lucky I was to have had a mother who taught me how to sew at an early age.

While I can’t remember the lessons themselves, I remember her sewing machine – it was a Singer brand machine and you could sew forwards or backwards, that was it. And I must have been 12 or so when I learned because she died when I was 13 and at that point I was designing and sewing my own Barbie clothes. But she didn’t just teach me how to sew on the machine, she also taught me how to embroider and so I also have her to thank for my love of stitchery.

I’m sure my mother learned to sew from her mother, who learned to sew from hers. My sisters both sew as well. I love the idea of these traditions being passed down from mother to daughter. I taught my daughter how to embroider when she was little, and I look forward to the day my granddaughter follows this tradition as well.