Let the Creative Juices Flow Darby Moran Grade 12
I stepped out of the car, backpack in grandmother taught me how to thread a hand, and was surprised to see my grandmother waiting at my front door.“ I have a surprise for you,” she said. I opened the door and came face to face with the Bernina. It was the first sewing machine I could call my own. Bernina is like the Nike brand of the sewing world. I had been eyeing her for years, stashed away in my grandparents’ spare bedroom. Finally, she was mine. I hoped I could harness the potential talent that was stored inside her. I could sew anytime I wanted to. No more long car rides to my grandmother’ s house in order to finish that pillow or quilt I had been making. I felt like my grandmother finally considered me as my own person. It was like she finally recognized me as an artist, not just her apprentice.
Ever since I can remember, my grandmother and I have sewed together. She began teaching me when I was really little, and I’ ve been following in her footsteps ever since. I was a natural from the beginning. My needle, work a sewing machine, and handstitch quilts. She taught me how to follow patterns and how to create something from scratch. When I finished stitching together my first pillow, I was overwhelmed with a sense of accomplishment. It was easily one of the most memorable moments of my life. I still remember the look on my grandmother’ s face when I showed it to her. Her face lit up in pride and admiration of what I had created with my own two hands. It made all of the hard work worth it. Seeing that smile on her face made my heart happy.
Her gift skipped a generation, leaving my mother and her sister clueless when it came to sewing. We were the odd women out in our family of engineers. Every summer she took me to sewing camp and encouraged me to pursue my newly discovered talent.
As my grandmother said, I was her“ mini-me”. We loved doing the same things and we loved doing them together. We both
Dripping Ink 12