After nearly nine long years of separation, the Kenmore Corporation and I have resumed our passionate, though sometimes odd, relationship, and hope to soon give birth to many beautiful new fashions. Sorry we didn't invite you to the ceremony, but it was extremely low-key. My artist friend Dave gave away my new mate, Mr. Kenmore Sewing-Machine, with the option to buy him forever and for a reasonable sum. Now if I can just get Ken to stop breaking needles, I probably will keep him around, as well as buy another, newer companion with additional functions.

After two visits to the local fabric store, it seems the world of sewing has changed very little since my last stitching experience. The boxy, homely patterns are still mainly designed to compliment four-legged barnyard animals, minus a few decent offerings, and the machines have remained quite cheap. These days you can get machines with almost 50 varieties of stitch for only $200. (For a much steeper price tag, you can buy electronic machines from the Brother Company, masters of the keyboard universe, that stitch blecko Disney appliques you can put on your brainwashed children's belongings � but don�t do that.) Some electronic machines aren't much more expensive � including ones loaded with function buttons. A far cry from the machines my mom used, which featured practically no technology besides some barebones, Forties-era electric device that made the needle go up and down ... sometimes.

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Mom hated sewing, which probably explains in part why I always enjoyed it. My first turn at the bobbin wheel came in junior high school, when Mrs. Saracino � she went by the name "Barb" and had suffered a nervous breakdown the summer before I entered her classroom � gave me an A for making an extremely hideous red cotton shirt accented with white anchors, and "matching" blue polyester pants that had an elastic waistband. (When I was 12, I dressed like a nursing home resident. Don�t ask me why, because I don�t know the answer.) Apparently, Mrs. Saracino thought this grotesque ensemble was well made. Then again, who really knows what was going through her head at the time, or if she was looking out for anything else but signs of her own recuperation.

Out of fear, I'd never touched a sewing machine before Barb showed me how to thread a needle. Some of my relatives told me that in high school my aunt had accidentally sewed her fingers shut. Puncture wounds? No thanks. But I guess by the time I reached 8th grade sewing wasn't so daunting. Besides, it seemed a more natural (gendered?) alternative to woodworking as a means to fulfill the craft requirement at my new middle school, Richland (�Home of the Rams�).

Sewing class also presented an opportunity to meet girls. As a new girl, I needed friends of my own sex � friends who could help me learn how to dress. But I didn�t really make friends with any of the girls in sewing class. Mindy was a cigarette-smoking bad-girl who thought she was too cool for school, Trinity was a stuck-up backstabber, and Kim never said anything and in our senior year was voted �Most Silent.� The only person who really spoke to me, regrettably, was Joe, who apparently took sewing for the same reason as I.

Joe was an overweight poor kid who wore flannel shirts and a chain wallet every day, and complained that the basic art of sewing was for girls and "fags." There wasn't enough room for him in woodshop or metalshop, so he got sent down to the end of the crafts/arts hallway to join us chicks and Andy M., who the football players often called "fag." Sometimes Joe wore the same shirt all week, which naturally got him some attention from the kids looking to pick on somebody. Folks said he didn�t bathe often, and judging from the greasy look of his hair, he didn�t. In terms of bad fashion sense, he really gave me a run for my money. Same goes for poor hygiene. Like many young girls, I went through an anti-showering phase, and often used baby powder instead of soap and water to obtain that �clean� scent. It didn�t work. Yet according to some bizarre compare-and-contrast scheme, I deduced that I was more appealing than Joe. It must have been the weight prejudice; at 12, I was chubby, but not fat like he was. Also, I had just come off of three straight years of �Top Student� awards at the Catholic School that I escaped from after 7th grade, so I was feeling pretty cocky about my brain, the only thing I could use at the time to show up my classmates. Joe didn't seem too smart � he hung out with some of the other metalhead kids in our class, who wore their flannel under leather Megadeth jackets, and was placed in the third of our class's five levels, which were separated by IQ. I was in the gifted program, which at the time was, like, sooo important but today signifies nothing.

One of our first days in class, Joe and I started joking around, expressing our shared fear that sewing would turn us into burned out fuddy-duddies a la our synthetics-adoring instructress. This was before Joe's low social status and repeat flannel attire became so obvious, and before I'd heard the rumors about his interest in satanism. When he told me that he and his older brother owned chickens, and that sometimes they killed the chickens by hitting the birds on the head with a nail-studded two-by-four, I tried not to be judgmental. Apparently Joe perceived my nodding to be interest, and wrote me a note, folded in a triangle. I thought this was both sad and amusing, so I showed it to some girls I wanted to be friends with. Soon everyone in class was poking fun at Joe and me, saying we were �going out,� an item. I did not want to be Joe�s item, so my demeanor toward him became rude and snotty. By the end of the semester we were bitter towards each other. But at least we had our homemade consolation prizes: Joe's simplistic pillow set shaped like French fries in a cardboard sleeve; and my more elaborate nerd outfit. You can read some symbolism into that, if you like.

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Despite my troubling experience with Joe, I did not displace my discomfort onto the Husqvarna company but embraced their machines with vigor. By 10th grade I had my own little enterprise making Barbie Doll clothes and selling them to my aunt�s friends� kids (this was the same aunt who allegedly sewed her fingers shut). Each morning during summer vacation I�d get up at 10, switch on the Lite FM (hits from the 40s, 50s, and 60s), and sit down at the machine. At around 3am, I�d stop. In between, miniature gowns made of satin, lace, and poly-cotton blends would emerge from my little work station, and I�d throw them on a Barbie and head back to the machine. I was tremendously focused on this work, and determined to one-up Mattel in terms of quality � which wasn�t difficult. All of my gowns had hand-stitched beadwork, sequins, and other fancies, and they never slid down to reveal Barbie�s breasts, like so many store-bought outfits had.