I never put things together...

Anji writes from Brisbane:
'Caitlin is going into the Rag-trade. She got a child friendly, battery operated sewing machine for Christmas and we set it up for the first time today. Well...some interesting things were created. A bag and a pillow. (lots of nice straight lines) It will take a lot of practise before any of the big designers will be shaking in their boots (or tape measures).'

Here's our family history:
My mother's mother, Mummy Barbara, was born in 1904, and was always good at everything she turned her hand to. She was fabulous not just at sewing clothes, but at designing them. She didn't need to use a pattern. My great-grandmother would travel about County Durham in the teens and/or twenties and come back and say, "Mrs. Such-and-So wants a dress for her daughter who is the size of our Ella but a little plumper," or what have you, and Mummy Barbara (quite young at the time) would make the perfect things. My mother, born in 1923, was never handy. She was dreamy and artistic in a way that drove her mother - who was no-nonsense and artistic - quite wild. Mummy Barbara always considered my mother hopeless. My mother went to a convent school for some years (we aren't Catholic) and told me how she had to mend her lisle stocking on the fly once, whilst wearing them - she sewed right through the skin and didn't notice until she was undressing. When I learned to sew it was as a child so I could make trousers for my only doll, repair tack, and things like that. My mother taught me to sew (by hand natch) and I really was more inclined to inventing embroidery than anything. My father taught me how to sew leather, but he could also sew by hand and made a nice little toddler's brown tweed hacking jacket for one of us in the early 1950s. When I turned 16 my parents (for what reason I know not) gave me a sewing machine. I liked making bags and nighties and things with no stupid patterns. I'd mend horseblankets. I was forced to learn to sew using a Simplicity pattern in Home Economics class, and lost all interest in sewing on a sewing machine from that experience. Fast forward to the 21st century, and I'm making virtual clothes inside Second Life. Now - that's a strange line. And Caitlin is joining, too!