Sew What?

At the school I was attending at that time all the seventh grade girls were required to take a Home Ec (Home  Economics) class for one semester. All the boys had to take wood shop.

In home ec we learned many useful things. Like how to shampoo our hair.  And to change our underwear every day. And to clean up after ourselves. The best thing in class happened when we were shampooing hair. One of the girls took off her blouse to keep it from getting wet. Her hair was full of shampoo when the janitor came in (unannounced). You never saw such a furor trying to get her properly covered and him out of the room.

We also learned how to formally set the table and the correct way to serve (serve to the left, remove from the right). We even had the honor of serving the Junior/Senior Banquet.

For one assignment we gathered wildflowers. We learned how to dry them and then arrange them. I will admit that was fun.

We made aprons. I gave instructions for those previously. And we made circle skirts. A circle skirt is a true circle that can be laid out and you will see a full circle.

So we purchased our material, laid it out, and cut a circle of fabric. In the center we cut another circle to fit our waists. We made waistbands and sewed them on. Them we took them home to hem them.

I was extremely confident because my mother made a lot of our clothes. We measured and pinned the bottom to prepare for hemming. Mom supervised but I did the work. She never did our homework for us.

I was up late working on my skirt but I had it done by morning. I folded it carefully and was off to school. I was excited because that skirt was half the grade in that class.

Each of us put on our skirt and modeled it for the class. I was mortified! One side of the hem was at the top of my leg. The other side was brushing the floor. In between it went up and down. What happened?

Needless to say my grade was not good. And I still do not know how I managed to mess it up so bad.