I was sitting at the hairdresser yesterday afternoon when I received a message from young R: "Could you maybe help me with some sewing repairs?". We were planning a quick catch up and easy tea in the evening. Speaking from experience I sent back, "I'll have a go. Do I need any supplies?" "Yeah, maybe a heavy duty needle . . . it's a hole in a bag." R has just returned from a World Challenge trip to South East Asia. My imagination started to fill in possibilities of what "a hole in a bag" might mean. I'm always amused and a little bit proud when my friends' children treat me as the "go to" person for fixing things, though sometimes I feel that a magic wand is the required tool rather than any of my textile supplies. I wasn't planning to go home before our catch up. Nor was I sure that I had suitable needles at home. And they're always useful things to have around. Instead of coming home to search my studio, I stopped off at a local fabric store to pick up these:
Either the right needle would be in this aray, or it would be a "magic wand" job. Picking these up resulted in a friendly conversation with a new shop assistant. I came away with requests for information about the various sewing and quilting classes I'm involved with in local Neighbourhood Houses--that's another type of conversation I love.
The repair job turned out to be "doable". The bag was reasonably well made and just one seam had come undone at a wear point. Despite my impressive choice of needles, I ended up repairing the seam in layers. my fingers just don't have the strength of an industrial machine to get through eight thicknesses of bag fabric!
This morning making sure I took the set of needles out of my handbag was a priority. I'm flying interstate in a couple of days. I can just imagine these sharp metal objects showing up at the security screening point. Now there's a conversation I'd rather avoid.
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