“A Grand Adventure is about to begin.” –Winnie the Pooh

Greetings Dear Ones!

Sooner or later the shock is going to wear off. I am going to stop being totally surprised each time a new customer finds his or her way to my door and knocks and says “are you the Seamstress?” I had seven customers the first three days and I asked all seven of them “how did you find out about this?” I have yet to advertise! Word is spreading—through social media, through gossip, through disturbances in the energy fields around the granola factory: Attention Gentle Brattleborians, there is a woman here who can make clothes fit you. All you have to do is roam the cavernous halls of the old Cotton mill, clutching your pants and calling her name. Work your way to the North end of the building, there will be a picture of a sewing machine above her door. That is the place. Enter and find THREAD. So much thread. Some of it snagging her ankles as she staggers towards you, bewildered, wondering what you are doing here and how you found her. It’s like a twin flame/soul mate journey—only in polyester and rayon. That which we seek is seeking us too.

Setting up a new business is so much like becoming a new parent it boggles my mind. I have to think of everything—fear fears I never imagined before, nurture and protect what is nascent and above all, Be Responsible! It also means establishing firm limits around what I can and cannot do: I can do only soft leather items—only some of those big, gnarly Harley jackets can fit under my machines without breaking all sorts of needles. I am getting so many calls for leather work. A woman calls to see if I can create leather cushions for her family room. NO. “I just do clothing—no domestic items, no cushions, no draperies, no slip-covers for Volkswagons. I want to manage expectations so I can do the things I’m properly good at. Even then, I’m terrified of making a mistake. I’ve been triple and quadruple checking my work, really missing my buddies in the old shop. We all helped each other with “Quality control,” which was not so much about controlling the “quality” as its Lack. (Have you taken the pins out of the bust pads? Have you snipped all hanging threads? Have you closed up that hole in the lining you used to get in under that jacket?) As far as I am concerned, one can never have Too Much quality—though I see now that it does affect the bottom line, as I remake a woman’s skirt from scratch and realize I cannot charge her a living wage for my time or her “Thrift store find” will cost her more than a Dolce & Gabbana. There has to be a balance.

A contractor friend told me—“When you go into business for yourself watch out. You do a great job and they will tell ten people. You make a mistake, and they tell a hundred. Word travels fast. I got a friend who cuts trees—no matter how many enormous elms he’s dropped in tricky suburban situations, nobody knows about him until he drops one log through someone’s back deck. That’s business for you.”

Just to play with my machines and to get my gravity fed Iron up and running, I hem some curtains for my son. I cannot get them even and they wind up too short. Prudence grumbles the entire time, “Let this be a lesson to you, Lassie!” So, I agree: CLOTHING ONLY! I have a fair shot at having that turn out ok.

Imagine my astonishment when a sweaty young woman, my very first customer in fact, staggers up the stairs and heaves onto my pristine cutting table two HUGE chunks of a futon mattress she has, in a fit of mad ambition, cut up with a saws-all. They lie there, open on two sides each, hemorrhaging hunks of wool and foam all over the shop. “Can you cover these with fabric so I can make bench cushions out of them?” she wants to know. She’s a friend, so I roll my eyes, bite my tongue, and agree. I had told her months ago I would help her with this project and here it is, Day One, to haunt me. She has brought some fabric but it is not nearly enough. I will have to go shopping for her, since she is leaving the country for a month and does not have time to do this before she leaves and she’d like these cushions done before she returns. (Of course she would.) She is amazing and talented and I love her so much. Have I mentioned she’s on a Tight Budget, which is why she hasn’t gone to a “Real” professional who could actually do a good job at this?

Now, every second person in the door looks at the mountain of dead futon on my table and says “Oh! You do cushions!!! GREAT!” and I have to explain that no, I do NOT do cushions. “But…” they say, indicating the heaps of leaking foam and wool. “That is for a Friend,” I hiss, “a friend I currently want to clobber.” “How can I get to be your friend?” they ask, teasingly, hoping they can entice me to do some shitty little job that is not on my menu. Like sheep, they are testing the fences to see if the electricity is really On today. I can see I will have to be Firm or wind up eating a lot of tear-stained trifle with my bare hands, while moaning that people don’t respect my lax boundaries.

In any case, I can now reveal a Secret Dread I have been having—a dread that almost rivals the dread of disappointing people or making mistakes. I have been deeply Concerned that the good people of Vermont are so amazingly Aware and Sincere—Socially Sensitive, Politically Active, Environmentally Conscious, and Spiritually Centered—so individually Responsible yet so Community-minded—that I was deeply concerned all my blog fodder would dry up in the total Absence of Nuttiness. Earnest People actually took the time to inform me with all Seriousness, “You’ll have no blog material here. Everyone is Different in Vermont. It’s not like Massachusetts.” I’ll admit, I was a little worried. There is a deeply laid-back, groovy, “our fashion is a blend of Pategonia, Thrift Store, and Tractor Supply” vibe that makes me think I will never have people in the dressing room wearing wellington boots and obsessing over hemlines. (Wrong! It’s Already happened!) I’ve learned an important lesson in my first week: never assume that just because people wear thirty-seven layers of responsibly-harvested up-cycled wool and shop at a co-op does not mean they are sane. Praise Be! What a relief!!!

With every phone call, text, or email that says “I have a suit that needs altering. How soon can you do it and how much will that be?” I grin and feel more at home. People everywhere want to know “how long is a piece of yarn?”

One woman calls and wants to know if I can tailor three old suits for her son. They belonged to his grandfather.

“Sure,” I say.

“How much will that be?” she wants to know.

“What are we doing to them?” I ask. “Are they being let out? Shortened? Hemmed? Tapered? Taken in?”

“Well, how would I know?” she asks testily. “You’re the tailor!”

“The best thing to do is bring them in here and let me take a look at them. I can’t give estimates over the phone,” I advise as gently as possible. “A consultation will cost you nothing. I can give you an estimate and then you can decide.”

“Great,” she says. “That sounds fine.” She pauses, then adds “Do I have to bring the boy in too???”

“Um…. Yes, ma’am, that would be helpful.” She can’t see me over the phone but I am doing a fist-pump into the air. YES!!! I just knew it! People are the same everywhere. And I LOVE them all SO MUCH.

Sadly, I never get to meet this woman and enquire about whether or not she was actually born and raised in Vermont, or transplanted from a Nutty State, because she calls back to tell me that the suits have been eaten by moths and they are going to have to buy the boy a new one after all. She wants to know where she can donate the moth-eaten suits. “Maybe some poor person has a job interview and won’t care how he looks,” she says hopefully.

As week one ends and another begins, I am feeling cautiously optimistic and extremely Grateful. People around here are terribly clever, resourceful, and resilient. They all seem to sew or know someone who does, though they admit they don’t get around to it often. They tell me familiar stories I have come to know and love, that help me know and love them as people too.

It’s thrilling to feel so welcomed in this community. Random strangers at the bank, in the hardware store, even the insurance agency, seem happy there is a seamstress coming to town. Folks are also excited about the upcoming mending circle I am starting at the end of the month. We will meet monthly on Monday Evenings to help each other Mend. People are excited to learn, excited to share, excited about fitting into things in their closets or repurposing them for some other Good.

In general, when I allow myself to breathe, to hope, to feel even a shred of competency, I realize it’s just like that day the doctors kicked me out of the hospital and insisted I take my two-day-old daughter with me. All I have to do is keep this precious baby alive, one day at a time. When I stop being scared, I can look at what I am creating and feel SO, SEW happy! What an adventure now begins! I’ll take the jobs as they come, one by one, chopped up futons and all.

Let the Mending Continue! With Sew much love…

Yours aye,

Nancy