In the past few weeks, I spent many
hours preparing our Czech costumes (kroje) for an event coming up. I
carefully mended, pressed, cleaned, starched and labeled each piece. One
of the pieces is an elaborately embroidered white skirt with
a handkerchief pinned to the waist. I unpinned the handkerchief as I
carefully pressed the skirt. This particular skirt took over an hour to
iron. As I finished, I pinned it to the coat hanger and hung it on a
hook on the closet door so that I could attach
the hankie. As I was pressing the handkerchief, I saw something that
made me laugh. I hung the skirt inside/out on the hanger and didn’t even
notice.
Suddenly, I was 5 years old again and sitting on a small stool at the foot of Grandma’s rocker.
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| Edna Elena Victoria Hewett Nix (1900-1972) |
Before I started school I stayed with
my grandmother while my parents were at work. I learned many things from
Grandma during that time. She taught me that hard work is a part of
life, chores are to be done before TV, a Bible is to always
be close and opened often, how to make the most of what you have and
not complain, how to cut a ‘switch’ from a tree when I talked back to
her or slammed the screen door and that embroidery is only as good as the inside.
I was not allowed to sit and watch
television all day. We watched at least one soap opera, Johnny Watkins at lunchtime and not much
else. I could be wrong but I seem to recall that her favorite was
Secret Storm. If I was there on the weekend, we watched Lawrence
Welk. I liked the bubbles! Though even when watching her favorite soap, she did not sit idle.
She had a sewing basket on the right side of her chair under a standing
lamp used for light. The
Secret Storm and Johnny Watkins farm report was of no interest to a five-year-old so I would sit
on a very small stool made of four coffee cans covered with padding and
scrap fabric (nothing went to waste at Grandma’s house) and watch as she
embroidered cup towels, pillow cases, aprons and dresser scarfs.
I loved the beautiful designs of beautiful ladies in their full skirts,
colorful flowers and playful kittens.
As the items she made could be seen
from both sides, she kept her stitches neat and showed me how the back
of the design looked (almost) as good as the front. She would let me
practice but my work from those days must have looked very poor
compared to her fine handiwork. I remembered getting so frustrated when
my thread would knot (as it often did) and I would give up. Each time,
she would pick up my discarded piece, remove the knot and hand back to
me. I do not remember her getting impatient
or upset but she would not let me start a new piece unless I finished
what I started.
This trip down memory last weekend
gave me pause to think of Grandma, but after church on Sunday I thought
of something else. Grandma’s guidance mirrored God’s love for us and she
taught me something else with her needle and thread.
She
taught me unconditional love, correction when needed, perseverance and
that real beauty is determined by the inside.
