“The best investment is in the tools of one’s own trade,” Benjamin Franklin

Greetings Dear Ones!

The frost is coming on hard at nights now—making the ground sparkle in the starlight as I send forth the tiny hounds to do their last call of “dooty” before bed. The rash of Mumpkins (mums + pumpkins) that has infected every doorstep from here to Alberta is starting to subside—or at least wither and sag and look less virulent. Everything, including me, has decided it is time to Rest, rot just a little, and go to seed. We clamber just a little earlier into our beds and the room is warm but the sheets are cold. Our flannel and fur-clad bodies radiate warm, safe, round pockets in the middle, with paws and toes gingerly exploring the frontiers of Cold at the margins and scurrying back to the warmth. When we awake before dawn, the room is icy and the bed is warm. It’s a time of Turnings.

Here at Hermit Hollow, the orchard apples have been harvested and are now either apple sauce or gently fermenting delicacies for drunken mice to nibble. Exciting things are happening. We are building a shed for the sheep! “A She shed?” someone jokes. “No,” I say, “a SHEEP shed. There’s a P on the end.” What the heck is a “she shed?” It turns out, it’s A Thing! A “she shed” is the feminine counterpart to the “Man Cave.” Who knew? Apparently, while some men (not all) like to have a dank hole in the cellar in which to wallow in their manliness, shoot pool, and consume frothy pints of hell broth with their brothers far from the madding cries of Suckerware parties and Pampered Chef implements, some women like to have an outdoor shed or building, upstairs in the sunlight, separate from the main building of the house—“reserved specifically for the use of an adult woman, in which she can relax and pursue her interests” says Pinterest. Well, if you are me and your interests consist of cloven-hoofed wool and pellet producers, then your “She shed” will have a P in it. Come to think of it, it might have a LOT of Pee in it. But that’s beside the point.

The point is that these beloved Hermits are MASTER builders and I am learning how to swing a hammer properly (not just smash the nails until they are pretzels), drive in GRK screws, and how to measure many, many, MANY times. It’s a lot like sewing but with wood, except that fudging things by a quarter inch in sewing is forgiveable—in wood, it is not. They don’t use words like I do, like “skinch,” which means “skinny inch” in Nancyland. They know to the 32nd of an inch what a board should be.

While I am learning, I am also teaching. I am excited about having a little sewing apprentice in the form of an 11-year-old homeschooler in town. She has bright, magnetic green eyes that collect ideas quickly. I can almost hear the clicking sounds as I show her things and they snap through her lenses and into place in her brain forever. She already sews beautifully by hand—with neat, even little stitches that look like mice may have done them. My job is to teach her how to use a machine and all the other tricks of the trade. “Empowerment is having tools and knowing how to use them,” I tell her. This is NOT sissy stuff.

When people ask if I write this blog for seamstresses I have to laugh. Heavens NO! I think there are less than thirty-nine of us left in North America—what kind of target audience is that?? We are not as endangered as New Caledonian Owlet Nightjars but we should definitely be put on some sort of Environmental “watch” list. Seamstresses are a dying breed. Most of us are too old now to mate so we have to indoctrinate the young we poach from other nests. Sewing is not hereditary anyway. Those Stitch-witches who do manage to reproduce tend to give birth to offspring who say “Hey, Mum! Can you fix this? I need a costume by tomorrow…”

So, very carefully, I begin to teach my darling acolyte the names of our sacred tools and what they do. I am learning the same things from the carpenters building the shed. Everything has a name. I appreciate how overwhelming it is to learn this new language. When the carpenters refer to a “framing square” I have to say, “Is that the bent thingy or the long thing with bubbles in it?”

“What’s this?” my student asks. “It’s a seam ripper,” I tell her. “It’s for when you want to take out stitches, accidentally slash into the good fabric, and spend the rest of the afternoon saying bad words.” She nods bravely. “And what is this?” she asks, pointing to a rounded wooden object in my basket. “Ah! That…that is something special! That is a darning mushroom; it’s the Vegan version of a darning egg—for when you wish to mend a hole in a sock. You simply slip it under the hole and use it to hold the shape of the sock while you weave threads back and forth and say ‘darn-it, darn-it’.” She smiles in a polite yet concerned way. She hasn’t quite decided whether I am totally bonkers yet but she’s getting close. We discuss all sorts of nomenclature like warp and weft and selvage; placket, piping, and ruching, these dear (to me) and familiar (to me) words of our craft. I had not quite realized how extensive this vocabulary is—how much “knowing” it contains and how it sounds as old-fashioned as witchcraft on young ears. I think the hardest thing about any business (with veterinary medicine being the hardest, of course!) is learning ALL the NAMES for things first. For example, “This is a Cow. This is a Sheep. This is a brachial plexus avulsion of the nerves…” and so on. The language of sewing, like the language of carpentry, is specialized and so are the tools: A hammer strikes; a vice holds fast; a lever lifts… And yet… as my wryly-wise beloved Builder pointed out to me recently, pretty much any tool can be a hammer. I nod knowingly. (Guiltily I remember trying to pound my son’s bookshelf into place using a gallon jug of laundry detergent. How was I to know the cap would shatter and that his desk would foam for the next three weeks?)

We need physical tools to do physical tasks—they make life so much easier and our products so much better. We also need Tools for dealing with emotional crises that are instrumental in building relationships with others and ourselves. I remember being down on the family farm—helping my father, who taught me the line “Don’t force nothin’; Just get a bigger hammer.” Get your hands on the best tools you can. Don’t worry—better tools will come along in time. Sometimes the best way to smash something into shape is with a gallon jug of laundry detergent—sometimes you are lucky enough to be using a Bosch SDS rotary hammer drill… Seek wisdom greater than your own to learn the difference. Invest in the best you can acquire. It’s worth it.

Use of tools is considered a very “human” thing to do. (Though many species are known to use “tools,” not many use laundry soap to build a shelf; I’m pretty sure that distinction belongs only to the subset of me.) We shape the tools and the tools shape us. Knowledge of our tools informs us that “everything happens for a reason.” Cause and effect are immediate and observable. Good Tools help us reverse, redirect, reshape and restyle our circumstances or garments or shelters. With determination and Good Tools, we can co-create or re-create the life we choose—no matter what Fate or Karma has decreed. Best-selling author of computer language books Jeff Duntemann is quoted as saying, “A good tool improves the way you work. A great tool improves the way you think.” I agree.

Success in diplomacy, foreign policy, carpentry, surgery, seamstressing, even attending the upcoming Thanksgiving Dinner with the family—all require the Right Tools for the job: Do we use our tools to Accept What Is or choose differently to Make the Best of something? Are stubborn perseverance and hard work the best options? Probably, somewhat, more often than never. Are Compromise, Acceptance, Patience, and Tolerance? Aye. About the same. Which is it in the end—Do we “never give up” and just get bigger hammers? or Surrender to our limitations Gracefully? (That is, when we are full of Grace.) Tools will change our thinking. Sometimes we can lift much heavier objects by being Smart, rather than strong. So the answer to both questions is YES. Yes. By all means, Give Thanks for all your Blessings. Then get a Seam Ripper and start over if you must. You can always Get a bigger Hammer.

Be well, my Dear Ones! May today be the day you gather your best tools and begin the work of your dreams.

Yours aye,

Nancy