In praise of mothers

Last night, I was close to a meltdown. It was about 9:00 or so, which is about the point in time where I begin to stop being rational. After about 10pm, it's just downhill all the way, and I either use the internet, chat, or go to bed. The skirt was almost done, but not completely. I had everything done except the eyelets.

Then, disaster struck. I couldn't get the eyelets in. There were too many layers of fabric to get them through. I tried everything I could think of. There were sewing tools, and non sewing tools, scattered all around me. I needed advice, but didn't know where to turn--my mother, my usual go-to sewing helper, was out! Normally, I would have packed everything up and waited, but I had to finish the skirt that night so my cousin could wear it the next day. So I kept struggling with it.

Then, Mama arrived. Everything became instantly so much better. I don't know what special gift mothers have, but somehow they can fix anything. Or my mother can, anyway! It's actually kind of amusing--I sew much more often than she does, and am willing to attempt much harder things than she is, but I have never yet run across a sewing problem she couldn't solve.

We decided to make buttonholes by hand, and resigned ourselves to a long night. Then, an offhand comment made by my father gave Mama an idea. Instead of making eyelets for my cousin's ribbon, we just sewed lacings out of the fabric we had, and sewed them on (neatly covering the holes I had made trying to get the eyelets through).

I drove the skirt over to her, and was in bed before one. Of course, I had done no Greek homework at that point, but you take what you can get.

I made my cousin promise to get me a picture of her all nicely suited up in her costume, but I did get a few snaps of a sister holding up the skirt. Here they are:

What's the moral of this story? Don't embark on new sewing techniques that you've never done before an hour before a project is due. Or, maybe, Don't accept sewing jobs that involve drafting patterns in a week while taking Intensive Greek. Or, Don't leave the hardest part of a project to the last step.
But, if you do....make sure your mother is around!