Our seminar book of this week was, “Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers.” Within the story, Lovey has struggled to make original clothes without being mocked by the popular kids at school. Sewing regular fabric seemed not to be her skill set. Lovey announced at home that she was going to quit the sewing classes. Her father, who was her hunting partner, taught Lovey that if the materials in the garment matter to the maker, then any amount of mocking wouldn’t be effective.

Lovey made a leather vest made of different animals that mattered the most to her past. Goat and rabbit fur. She didn’t wear it to school, but she transferred the lesson over to her next sewing class. She was taught how to make hiphugger jeans. Lovey gathered denim with help from her mother and the church, she also gathered the leftover denim that remained in the house. She wore them to school, but there was no mockery from anybody. Nobody noticed it was homemade but only told Lovey her ass crack was showing. She had the last laugh when she responded with, “That was how I made them.”

I absolutely love this lesson. On my bed right now is a themed quilt that my mother had created for me on my birthday last year. My birthday is in October, very close to Halloween. Ever since I was a child, I always requested that my parties be related to Halloween: skeletons, witches, and Cheshire cats. When I was eight years old, my mom wanted to sew me my Halloween costume. She had no pattern, she invented this creation. I remember standing in the living room, facing the TV while my mom sat behind me measuring my torso and other else.

Purple sleeves, and a patterned body with squares on the fabric with alternating Cheshire cats and happy pumpkins. A brimless witch’s hat was created out of the squared fabric, and I was a witch that Halloween. I was so dang happy with this costume. It was softer than most costumes I got from the party store. When my public school had a costume day, I was proud to announce to friends that my mom had made mine.

For my birthday last year, my mom had been going through the Halloween boxes in the storage closet. She wanted to slim down the collection since every year we buy a little something. Mom found my old costume and later asked me if she could take it apart. Once I agreed, she cut the stitches and everything in the dress became flat fabric pieces. In her quilting wisdom, Mom found out how much of the fabric she could use, and how much new fabric she had to purchase. I went with her to the crafting stores and enjoyed looking through the Halloween themed collections.

Once the quilt was done, I loved pointing out where on the quilt was fabric from my old costume. At the end, my mom had leftover fabric and gave it to my grandmother. My niece, Layla was born in October last year and my grandma used the last of my old costume for a baby quilt. When I told my sister about that, she treasures that quilt even more and adorns Layla’s crib the most.