Sew Sad

Awhile back, I mentioned that mud in my house was the scourge of my existence.

I lied.  Awana patches.  They are the real scourge of my existence.

Do you have offspring in Awana Cubbies, dear readers?  Are you familiar with . . .

The Awana Vest?

Basically, it is evil.  Your children earn patches and you have to sew them onto the vest.  It is all very horrifying.

And my kids do not have patches on their vests.

Oh, my boys have earned patches.  There are patches in the car.  There are patches in a bowl in the kitchen.  There are patches on the floor.  There are patches everywhere . . . except on the vests.  You see, dear readers, I cannot sew.

I'll give you a moment to recover from your understandable shock.

I blame my mother!  She won't deny it, either.  She did not teach me one thing about sewing.  In fact, I don't think she even ever showed me what a needle looked like.  In the interest of full disclosure, I am pretty certain there was a small, tomato-like thing that pins were pushed into at our house in the days of yore.  But I never saw it in use.

Many years ago, when the girls were in Awana Cubbies, I implored my sis-in-law, Lisa, to teach me how to sew.  She gave me excellent instructions and pretended to be impressed when I shouted for joy at my first stitch.

It was pretty dope.

But wouldn't you know it, my girls kept earning patches.  So, one day, I had to put on my big-girl pants and try sewing the patches on all by myself.

The first step is threading the needle.  I look in the sewing kit . . . that Lisa purchased for me, might I add, trying to ascertain which needle would be best and which color of thread.

Did Lisa say to use the same color as the patch?  Or the same color as the vest?  I could not be certain.

I notice this little guy in my sweet sewing kit and I wonder what on earth he's got to do with the price of cheese?

I decide that any color thread will suffice and I begin the attempted needle threading.

OH.

MY.

GOSH.

BECKY.

Needle-threading.  Not for the faint of heart.  That little loopy on the top of the needle is so small!  I would try and thread it and the end would get all split, so I would lick it and try to put it through and it would just not work.  I am not exaggerating in the least when I tell you I tried to thread that needle for FORTY-FIVE minutes.

I was ready to give up all my dreams of being a Susie Fantastic when I remembered The Google.

Oh, The Google.  My saving grace.

So, I Googled:  How to Thread a Needle and Google, my new BFF, promptly displayed an informative YouTube video for my viewing pleasure.

You know what this guy is?

A needle THREADER! You  know.  For to thread the needle!  Ah.  Brilliant.

So, I watch the DVD and try it on my own.  Nailed it.  It takes me about 35 minutes, but I sew on three WHOLE patches.  I was uEber proud of myself and went to put it on one of my sweet girls.

Imagine my disappointment when I realized that I had sewed the patch all the way through to the back of the vest.

Don't you hate it when that happens?

So, that little sewing adventure took place about 3 years ago.  And now, I shall share with you my present-day sewing travails.

I have two boys in Cubbies.  This may surprise you, but I wasn't too eager to get right on the patches this year.

But, I started to feel guilty when my boys kept asking when their vests would get the patches.  So, I considered my hot glue gun.  I called my marmie, because she is the reason I can't sew in the first place, and she had a good thought: perhaps the heat of the dryer would melt the hot glue.

She is a smart one, no?

So, I resorted to ironing on the patches.

Oh!  Have I told you?  I'm also terrible at ironing.  It's true.  I cannot tell a lie.

I ironed on all of their patches and within one week they had all fallen off.  Hence the patches in multiple locations throughout the house.

So tonight, I sat down determined to catch up on all these patches.  I spent five minutes trying to get the needle off the . . . . needle cylinder?  I don't know what it is called.  And then I remembered AUNTIE DATENUTLOAF!

Auntie Datenutloaf is on an airplane flying to where I live at this very moment.

BAM!

Auntie Datenutloaf is an expert sewer.  And, true, she will most likely be disappointed in me and my lack of domestic skills, but she is my auntie and it is her job to help me out of tricky situations such as these.

So, I am sitting on my bed, needles, thread, and patches scattered about, blogging about how I am going to make my dear aunt sew patches whilst she is on vacation.

She will be most honored.

Can you sew?  What is your level of expertise?

Did you know what this was?

Do you want to teach me your skills?  Or skillz?

Feel free to share.  Or not.  The choice is yours.