The power of suggestion. . .

I love that expensive cotton batting, not the cheap polyfill stuff. You know, the batting that when you look at it, you must reach out and give it a feel. And you can visualize placing it lovingly between the backing and cover of a wonderful homemade quilt.

Four years ago (is that all?) I gave my daughter (Mudcatter Moonglow) a 1955 Singer Series 15 rotary machine that my next door neighbor was going to donate to a garage sale. I had helped her move some furniture and inquired about the cabinet standing in the middle of the front hall. She gave it to me. I had it oiled and a new cord put on. My neighbor was given this machine as a wedding present and never learned to sew, so it was virutally brand new.

It took Caroline a little while to get the hang of it, because she would wait for me to set up projects for her. She loved the idea of having it and it looked beautiful in her bedroom. One day she needed to mend something and set up the project on her own, and it was like a switch was flipped. All of a sudden this child is haunting fabric stores, buying patterns, remaking thrift store garments. The only disagreements we have had over all of this was in the early days when she would try to default to color rather than fabric type in her fabric purchases. I insisted that if she was going to spend the money and the time to make something, she had to get the fabric that was right for it. After a couple of showdowns at Hancocks, she got it, and now this young woman (18) has an excellent eye for fabrics. She makes costumes for Anime conventions (generally incorporating both fabric and hardware store purchases) and in college (a sophomore) is a theater minor so she can learn costume design. (She's an English major--she's not interested in acting, hence the split).

SRS