Jodi Hills

So this is who I am – a writer that paints, a painter that writes…

Tag Archives: sew


by Leave a comment

Beyond the fray.

I didn’t know the meaning of fray until my mother taught me how to thread a needle. Sitting in her bedroom closet on a folding chair, because that was the only space for her machine and sewing supplies, she put my hands under the light and talked me through it. As the thread split apart and blocked the entry, she snipped the end and had me try again. And again. She had me close one eye. Then the other. The needle moved from side to side. Was the winking to signify I too was in on the joke, in on the fray? Slower, she cautioned. Breathe. And then, without my knowledge or permission, it went through. So excited I jerked around to show her, and it came undone, but still… So I did it again. And again. She held the small of my back, willing the patience to see me beyond the fray, beyond the passing, finally being ready to sew. 

Oh, patience…she can be a fickle neighbor. Coming by when you swear you don’t need her, avoiding you when you do. But I hope I’m getting better. Leaving that entry open. Even though sometimes it’s like passing through the eye of that very needle. But patience does come. Will come. Beyond the fray. 

And that’s when you hope you’re blessed, blessed to be with someone who will see you through that fray. Wait with you. Breathe with you. Celebrate when you make it beyond. That was my mother. She taught me how to sew. She’s still teaching me how to live. 

Shop Now!


by Leave a comment

Apron Strings.


I’m not saying it’s where “the brave dare not go,” but to take on a sewing project does require a certain amount of will on my part. I suppose it’s why I keep my grandma’s photo beside the sewing machine. For her it came naturally, or had to. It was at the Husqvarna shop next to Jerry’s Jack and Jill where she first showed off her skills to me, using words like serger, bias and basting. We ate toasted marshmallows from the recent grocery store purchase while the sales clerk tried to keep up. I knew I was in the presence of greatness. Nothing tastes sweeter than that. 

My mother could sew just as well. But she didn’t have anything fancy. Her machine was an oversized gray metal that sat inside her closet. She had to wind the bobbins by hand. There was barely room for two of us inside, but I needed to be near. If she used sewing terms, they were in her head. There was no space for flair, but I could feel it. Again, I stood in the presence of greatness. 

I am forever a proponent of using what you have to get what you need. So yesterday, I made an apron for painting in the studio. That’s not the whole truth. It was much more than that. I first rummaged through my old canvas tarp. Found a piece large enough to make a pattern. Cut it out. Took the plastic cover off my machine. (Took out the handbook — it had been a while.) Followed the instructions to wind the bobbin. To thread the machine. Hemmed each side of the apron. Ironed it. I had nothing for apron strings, perhaps the most important part. My husband found old belts from martial arts uniforms worn by the children. Perfection. My needle unthreaded twice while sewing them on, but who was I to quit? — quitting is not the string to which I will always be tied. 

Soon it will be covered in paint. And get more beautiful every day. 

When I say “use what you have,” of course I mean material on shelves and thread in drawers, but mostly, I suppose, it’s using the strength I have been shown, and the love that I’ve been given — nothing greater than that.

Shop Now!


by Leave a comment

A spool of thread.

Look at her! I thought. She must be some sort of genius. Rattling off words like bias, baste and bobbin. I hadn’t been spelling that long, but I sounded out the new words and wrote them down in the Big Chief notebook that I carried with me everywhere for occassions such as this. 

My grandma wasn’t tall, but she stood toe to toe with the man in charge at the Husqvarna sewing machine store on Broadway. I could see his shoulders relax when she began talking about her serger. I didn’t know what it was, but he seemed impressed with her knowledge, and enjoyed the exchange of a worthy seamstress. I was always happy to be with Grandma Elsie, but this was maybe the first time I felt something different. I pulled on her polyester pants to get her attention. She put her hand on mine to let me know she needed to finish her order. A part she needed for the perfect stich. The tiny bell rang again on the door as walked through to go to the car. “What’s the word for when you feel really good about someone, like when they are really good at what they do and you are happy to be with them, like when your heart feels full for them?”  I asked her, sliding closer on the leather bench front seat of the car. “You mean proud?” “Yes!” I said, and wrote it down in my notebook. 

I hope she saw that it was her name beside it, but I’m not sure she did. She opened the bag of toasted marshmallows that she got at Jerry’s Jack and Jill and handed one to me. I smiled at her, longer than usual for a marshmallow, and I think she knew. 

Maybe I’m still doing that. Trying to find the words to tell about all the people in my life who have made a difference. Tell of the extraordinary things they have given to me and to this world. I can’t be sure that they see it, but my heart smiles long, and for some reason, I think they know. 

Shop Now!


by 1 Comment

Pillow, the verb. 

It doesn’t come naturally to me. Not like painting. Or writing. I usually have to get out the manual each time I wind the bobbin. It always makes me laugh because it certainly isn’t written in my grandmother’s voice. After each instruction they are quick to warn that the rules must be followed explicitly or you could ruin the machine. With almost any direction, my grandma was more of a shrugging shoulder “oh, you’ll figure it out” kind of leader. 

Not needing to sew every day, I follow the guidelines and the bobbin spins empty. Then I close the book, trace the thread, pump the pedal, tug at the bobbin, pulling it up just a centimeter or so, and it begins to collect thread. It just needed a little Elsie-ing. I smile at her picture that doesn’t guard the machine, but welcomes me, and I continue the conversation, making a much needed (if you know, you know) bed pillow out of an old mini-skirt. 

I show you the picture of the pillow now. But what you really need to see is not in the image. More than a pillow, what I really needed yesterday was a break from a slight worry. It’s silly, I know, but I can get caught in a cycle of repeating thoughts that just gain momentum. I suppose we all can. But I know myself. 

It was my grandfather who first told me to focus on something else. And my grandma, with never the luxury of needing something else to focus on, shrugged her shoulders in smiling agreement. 

Tagged by them both yesterday, I stitched my way back into all the pleasant that surrounds me. The soft comfort of love that pillows me daily — that welcomes me home. 

Shop Now!


by Leave a comment

Buttericked.

The differences were many between my grandma and my mother. Grandma Elsie was much more of a Ben Franklin to my mother’s Woolworth’s. Grandma Elsie was penny candy and Crazy Days!  Grab bags and colorful aisles. Rules were loose and chance abundant. As a young girl, this was delicious, this fluorescent lit certainty — but not for every day. 

Perhaps it wasn’t as flashy, but I loved a Saturday morning at Woolworth’s with my mother. We went just as it opened. While most of my schoolmates rested on elbows before the television, fueling themselves with cartoons and Captain Crunch, I sat at the table in the back of Woolworth’s, thumbing through the Butterick sewing patterns. The ladies pictured on the front of the patterns were so glamorous. They not only showed you what the dress would look like, but what they would do while wearing it. 

My mother loved to sew. And she was good at it. Time didn’t allow her to pay a great deal of attention. Most of our Saturday mornings were spent at the laundromat, or the grocery store. But on those occasions when she placed the dream above the duty, we sat for hours inventing the lives we would live in pure Butterick style. 

I didn’t know for years that you could actually buy the patterns. I thought it was more of a library. They were expensive. So we pocketed the ideas. The dreams. And mostly, the time together. 

I can easily and often be overcome with Ben Franklin brain. The fast paced, bright colored, crazy day, sugariness of it all. It’s then my heart sits me down. Slowly. And says, let’s not be so sure for a while. Let’s just sit here and thumb through the dream a bit. It’s in this peaceful uncertainty that I can feel it — my mother’s lotioned hand, grasping mine. The glorious time slows to a Butterick pace. And I just breathe. In perfect pattern. 

“Not all of her dreams came true, but she was never sorry she had them.”

“Not all of her dreams came true, but she was never sorry she had them.”