Silver threads and golden needles and pearl like pins...

  Sewing and mending and altering.   That's what we're spending the school holidays doing.   I'm determined that The Diva inherit the stitching skills handed down to me by my Mother and Grandmother and that she know how to hem, design, dart and mend like a pro.   She's more interested in making patterns with the pins at the moment but some embroidered French style lingerie is in the works and she's having a ball with that.   There's more to passing on these skills, that just the sharing of knowledge.   It's the soft words, and the hand over hand working, and the praise or the giggles when things don't go quite the way they're supposed to. It's the well censored cursing when the bobbin tangles....I believe finickety-shindigger was the last one we came up with. It's the choosing of threads for embroidery or gathering of lace for trim. It's the making of bangles from buttons and the scrounging for enough of the right size and colour to do so.   My memories of my Mother and Grandmother are all caught up in these Heirloom skills. The sewing and the growing and cooking and cake making and fashioning fondant roses and designing embroidery samplers.   I want that for my daughter too.   ...Mimi...