I flew across the country to use a sewing machine.
Sure, I could have used the ones in the Makerspaces in Seattle, including the free ones at the library, but I didn't feel like making a reservation. I also just learned about the free ones at the Seattle library, I was only familiar with the makerspaces in the area would subject me to a paid monthly membership that's a bit too steep for a hobbyist with too little time.
The real reason I journeyed thousands of miles for a tool that's (apparently available for free) down the street for me is because it's my mom's. Carbon footprint be damned.
I had been drawing a blank for her Christmas gift at the time, so this was Christmas list manna. I took it to heart. But simply red pants, no matter how expensive the cut or brand, wouldn't do — the gift needed heart.
Patchwork pants have heart.
Patchwork pants assembled by someone that does not really know how to sew and took a crash course on setting up a bobbin immediately before final assembly are heart.
And all the better for it, because they can end up looking a bit like they were made by an eager 10-year-old that's been entrusted with a sewing machine and not a mid-twenties adult.
Luckily, I did not have to fly domestic to find the patch to work with.
That only required a few trips out into the thrift shops of my backyard.
There is no shortage of interesting fabric for repurposing and sticking onto other pieces of clothes. Pants and also literally anything else are free to become an anachronistic collaboration of faded denim, oversized plaid pullovers, sparkling wavy animal prints and melted ash neo-grunge t-shirts, stitched in frayed hodgepodge by zigzags of thread. The thread is also free to be whatever color of convenience imaginable.
Equipped with a few weeks worth of fabric from surveys of thrift bins and discount racks (fleecing my fellow thrifters of the good stuff only to cut it up didn't sit right with me, there is an inscrutable honor to thrifting), and a lucky break at Macy's on Christmas Eve to acquire some beautiful red corduroy (which is very in) pant options, I placed the non-reservation to use my mom's prized (read: old and oft complained about) sewing machine.
What luck that no one was using it the week I would be needing it.
Also what luck that my mom would be available to remind me, with deft hands slowed to 0.5x speed for instructional purposes, how to make a bobbin.
And then I, in a frenzy of fabric and heart, made the patchwork pants.
I do not think that they would have turned out nearly as well without a homespun bobbin.
The finished patchwork pants
While they do not give masterpiece—the zigzags sag and the patchwork is edgy—the important thing to me is that my mom can wear them when she walks about and around. And given the adversity of the year, it's no matter what her pants look like or who made them for her; the true gift is that she can walk around in them. I won't fly home every time I need a sewing machine, especially now that I have a new craft to hone. But occasionally, I'm sure to forget to make a reservation or how to make a bobbin.