Occasionally, yours truly, the Queen of Cheap, makes the wrong call when it comes to inexpensive purchases. I suppose this last one could be chalked up to lack of experience with the product - a small "Europro Dressmaker" sewing machine.

Let me start by telling you that, when I was a little kid, I had a real interest in sewing. My mother, who says that she's not a "good seamstress" yet made me a beautiful spring coat, with a lining, and also some of the most beautiful dresses I have ever seen when I was little, helped me make some doll clothes when I was about 5. However, I wore uniforms to school, and I think my Mom got kind of burnt out on the whole sewing thing amid everyone yammering at women in the 1970's that they were supposed to be able to "do it all" ( but that's a whole 'nother issue)

Anyway, that interest was quashed and tromped on in single semester of Home Economics......

by Miss Tree. She almost ruined my ability to cook, too, but I think she couldn't that's genetic. Still, I was telling you about Miss Tree. I encountered her in the 7th grade, the year when Everything Changed.

I went from a tiny Catholic School to a public school, which, it would later occur to me, was not in the best area of town. Catholic School was 1950's dour grimey halls, two teachers per each class - and they each did it all, history, math, science, religeon, art - the looming Pre-Vatican ll artwork and statuary of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. That would be a man with very soulful eyes suffering because his exposed heart was burning - and you don't want to know what happened to the little 4th and 5th grade boys who dared to make cracks about heartburn. We wore uniforms: jumpers and little white blouses with peter pan collars, knee socks, navey blue cardigan sweaters. We lined up for everything - lunch could be delayed for days if the line wasn't straight.

That summer I got fitted for a large cumbersome back brace, around which my mother tried, on a very limited budget, to get me a wardrobe of school clothes which would cover it, fit me, and make me look less like a Frankenstien monster. I had to wear the brace 23 hours a day, and was expected to face this situation with good humor.....which I really did try to do. After all, the thing was there, no escaping it. Might as well make the best of it.

At the public school we had a different teacher for each class, there was no such thing as a line anywhere, the walls were literally painted yellow and orange...the caffeteria was on a different floor, the only girls who weren't snobs were pregnant. The thing I remember most about it was the noise level. It was deafening in there. Sometimes I used to go into the girls room and cry just because the noise level was freaking me out. It was there I received some of the best advice I have ever gotten from a teacher, "Well, you can't spend your whole life crying in the girls room." she said. Truer words were never spoken.

I promise, I'm getting to Miss Tree and Home Economics.

In this school, everybody had to take everything. Art, Home Ec, Wood Shop, Metal Shop, and Music were required courses. The idea was to expose students to everything. Who knew, could be a hidden talent in there somewhere.

Of course, I was scared witless in metal shop. Screaming tools which threw sparks, posters everywhere about how to not get your finger cut off were an immediate threat to me, a known clutz clomping around in a five pound back brace with my new jeans half way up my legs from the 5" growth spurt I had that year. But, the teacher was very good. He was soft spoken. He was matter of fact. All you had to do to get along with those tools was follow the rules. Look at me, he said, I'm an old guy and I got all my fingers. I was trying to make letter holder, the simplest project we could make. He would come over and tell me all the things I had done right with it, apparently, seeing in my eyes that I was the kind of person who could tell perfectly well what was wrong with it. Then he'd ask if I had any questions, and, of course, since he wasn't bawling me out for screwing up, I'd ask him how to fix all the weird edges. I wound up getting an "A" in metal shop.

I got a "D" in Home Ec. We were supposed to make pillows in the shape of our first initial. You'd think this would be an easy and fun project, but not with Miss Tree. First of all, she was a scarey person all by hereself. She was as tall as I am now, with jet black, straight hair hanging down like a curtain and shot through with grey. While even I, in the midst of all of this dislocation, had enough social sense to tweeze my eyebrows so that there were two of them, Miss Tree was plauged by mono-brow. Her brow was so low and her jaw was so strong....she always wore short sleeves even in the dead of winter putting her hairy forearms on view....every time I looked at her I couldn't help but think of an ape, and then had to spend 10 minutes saying Hail Mary's under my breath to make up for uncharitable thoughts.

Unlike many tall, strongly built women, she did not have a low voice. Or maybe she would have if she ever spoke. She didn't though. She shreiked. All the time. At everybody. Through the whole class. At the time, it didn't bother me, since that's what I was used to from Burnt Up Heart.....I was just grateful she didn't also throw things given that there were so many sharp objects in the home ec room. But still. We weren't allowed to touch the sewing machines until half way through the semester. It was like they were her sacred charges and the Gods of Public School had inflicted a curse of careless children who Would Mess Them Up. They were fragile, expensive, tempremental machines that each cost Hundreds of Dollars. And if we harmed one she would make our parent's pay to replace it. At that age I would have gladly had my finger chopped off in metal shop rather then tell my father I had cost him Hundreds of Dollars.

Furthermore, I learned, sewing was not really about creating anything. It was really about accurate measuring, to the 8th of an inch. There was no filing, no eyeballing, no "range of accuracy" like there were in the shops. This was a Serious Class where we were going to Learn Something. If you measured wrong you would cut wrong and you would - heavens forfend - WASTE FABRIC. Honestly, until about a year ago I thought of wasting fabric like some kind of secular sin - you know, like littering or not recycling.

Before we were allowed to sew any fabric, we had to practice with paper sheets. We had to prove that we could get the the needle to go along various curved lines, and, if we were off of that line, even a little bit, we got another sheet of paper to try again with. There was one boy, a big, gentlehearted farm boy who made me think of my brother. That poor kid had hands like hams - he was gonna be there til doomsday sewing worksheets if somebody didn't help him. So as soon as I did an accurate one I gave it to him and then managed to bump one out for myself. Lee Farmboy was grateful to me, and talked to me, and told me he'd be happy to beat up anybody who bothered me - a real sign of affection in that school, though I didn't know it. Anyway, we started sitting together, trying to muddle through our projects. Lee was talking away, his normal, cheerful, sunny self one day when all of the sudden Miss Tree yanked his project away from him like someone rescuing a child from an abusive parent.

"What's wrong with you!" she shrieked. "You're sewing this on the WRONG SIDE!"

"Oh. Ok. Sorry." he said. He took it back, looked at it, turned it from the left side on which he had been carefully stitching, and tounge between his teeth, wrestled the right side of his project into the sewing machine.

"No, no, the WRONG SIDE of the fabric! The wrong side. Not the left and right side! The wrong side! What is wrong with you?"

Lee's face was bright red. He had no idea what she was talking about, but he was just plain too kind a person to ask in reply "What's wrong with you!" He just sat there looking helplessly at his lopsided "L". Finally I said quietly. "I think that she means you're sewing it inside out. I think she means the part that is going to be inside your pillow, if you keep going, is supposed to be on the outside."

"Oh! Okay!" he said, reaching for the much used tool to undo the thread. "Thanks!" he said cheerfully to Miss Tree who had thrown down his project in disgust. Honestly, I don't know where that guy is today, but, unless he really scewed up somehow I'm still sure with a personality like that he's going to go straight to heaven.

As a result of all of this, I have been convinced that I can't use a sewing machine. But I have hundreds of ideas for embelishments of tee shirts, stuffed toys, pillows, and such that I might be able to do well with if I could create and sell at flea markets or craft fairs. I can literally see patterns laid out in my head, not with any numbers attached of course, but all right in relation to one another, I think. So when I saw this simple looking sewing machine for $30 I bought it. I then spent 2 hours trying to follow the no written language instructions about how to thread the bobbin. The needle I could thread with no problem. Finally I showed the schematic to The Hub. "Oh," he said. "Well, this won't work. This machine is missing a part. You see, you're supposed to hook the thread through this guard thing here." he pointed to the drawing." But your machine doesn't have this part. So there isn't any way to finish threading it right. What did you think when you couldn't find this part?"

"I thought I was just looking at it wrong, you know, that it was just me....I mean, I couldn't find the part, but.... I don't know. I thought it was just because I was stupid."

"No, THIS is stupid. This is a badly drawn schematic for parts you don't even have. Can you still take it back?"

Yep. That's my next stop!