Thursday 23rd September
Day 155
I need to sew on a button. I don’t do much sewing and hardly any mending. I used to take it all to my mother who was a skilled seamstress. My sewing things are currently in a green 'Clarks' shoe box. I can trust I’ll find a cotton thread to match the material of my tunic - a dark mocha - because in a clear plastic box that used to be full of chocolates, I keep a collection of tiny spools of thread every colour shade of the spectrum. I remember buying them in a newly opened and almost empty supermarket in Streatham in South London where we lived when we first got married.
Searching in the box I find two more memories. A row of needles, one rusty one, slotted into a gold card - my husband’s. When I first met him he used to sew wads of rags onto sticks for his fire-eating performances. I can smell the paraffin on his breath now if I think about it. And singed chest hair.
The other memory jogger is a small padded pincushion nearly as old as me - green felt on one side and on the other a piece of material printed with white daisies on a pale green background. I recognise it as remnant of a doll’s dress made by my mother. I can hear her Singer sewing machine whirring on the verandah. The dress came to a sticky end - chewed by a neighbour’s dog. Maybe he thought my doll was a rat.
I’m glad the dark cotton thread for my button is a perfect match for the material - it disguises my lumpy uneven stitches. I've always been better at cooking than sewing.
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