Sewing in the “Revolution”

One of the things that frustrated me most as a homemaker when I got married was that I didn’t know how to sew. I could sew on a button, and that was about it. I truly didn’t have the patience to sit down, thread a needle and then start sewing something stitch by stitch. How maddening! I think it was one of the things I disliked most, unlike cooking, which I could do for hours and feel like the happiest woman in the world.

I think the problem was that when I was little, nobody taught me to sew. I spent my time in the kitchen helping my grandmother, who sold food to make a living, and we had an aunt who sewed beautifully. She always took up the hems of our school uniforms and of the muchawaited new clothes we wore at Christmas. The honest truth is that I didn’t pay much attention to sewing; in fact, I didn’t even own a sewing box.

When we were newlyweds, my beloved husband (a bit traditional, he is) gave me a basket of yarn and two giant knitting needles. To this very day I don’t know where I put that gift, and I never learned to knit in my life. My great-grandmother knitted, but me? Not a chance! And embroidery, even less. I had no idea.

But then the “revolution” came, and everything changed. For several years now I have been sewing almost every day. You can imagine that with this inflation, and with six children to feed and educate, I have no choice but to mend everything that tears at home. And when I say everything, I mean everything!

I bought a great big basket where I toss the torn socks, underwear, Tshirts, school trousers, dress trousers, tracksuits, shorts, skirts, towels, sheets, bedspreads, and so on and so forth, of the eight members of our household. Too bad you can’t sew shoes, but I have a wonderful cobbler who fixes whatever I bring him.

And do you want me to tell you something? It’s amazing how I’ve learned to sew and how much I’ve come to enjoy it. Now I feel almost like a Spanish lady, sewing and sewing. Between one stitch and the next, and also when I prick myself because I don’t know how to use a thimble, I think of those Spanish women who surely learned to sew during the Civil War, mending what few clothes they had. Surely that is where those wonderful seamstresses came from.

I have known some of them, and they truly have hands of gold! Once I tried to take a course, but I was so clumsy with my hands that I was embarrassed and never went back; I felt ashamed in front of that master seamstress! Those Spanish women (and Portuguese women too) who came to Venezuela fleeing war became true artists of sewing. How incredible! Those are the good things that can come out of a crisis.

In my case, I haven’t learned to sew marvels, because with six children who need to be fed and educated in this “revolution,” all I’ve learned is to mend and sew on patches. Oh! And to let down hems so they can wear the same pair of trousers all through high school. And my greatest achievement is that I have even learned to embroider; that was back when you could afford to pay someone outside to do embroidery.

So if there is one good thing I have learned in this “revolution,” it is to sew. Well, that and recycling books, notebooks, pencil cases, backpacks, pencils, colored pencils and everything else you can’t even imagine.

I remember that when this “revolution” began, and my husband and I started having children, some people called us irresponsible. To this day I can say, with great happiness, that my children have grown up happy, are hard at work studying and working for their country (even if they go around in mended clothes), and have learned firsthand some very important values, such as sobriety and temperance.

Meanwhile, I keep sewing, and I offer God every stitch I make and every needle prick I get, so that our country may soon set out on a path of development, justice and peace.