Take One: The Hat

After the initial euphoria of switching on the machine and finding that it didn't blow up I needed something to do. Practicing stitches on a piece of material was sure to bore me into extinction; I needed to make something tangible; a THING.
When Mum brought the Machine over she'd left me with a few 'starter' patterns, old favourites she'd run up many times over the years. At this point I have to confess that I've always been scared of patterns, so gossamer thin like old ladies skin, easy to poke holes in. And the lines, and instructions, incomprehensible, like ancient runes.
Be brave.
Rustling through the selection I found I had a dress pattern. Not just A dress, but THE dress. The dress of all dresses. The brown dress. But more on that later. I also had a skirt. Another dress, summery. A seventies-looking blouse with high ruffled collar. And a hat.
‘That looks easiest,’ I thought. ‘How hard can a hat be?’
Mum - the Santa Claus of Sewing - also left me some offcuts of material and I found a piece of red needle cord, perfect for the job. And some flowery yellow for the lining. I even had some cotton on the Machine, which mercifully avoided any encounters with the mysterious world of bobbin-winding.
I gently unravelled the pattern and read it, pretending to know what I was doing. Material, check. Cotton, check. Interfacing? Sounded like a computer techie term to me. I had no idea what this was, but no matter, because I knew I didn’t have any of it.
I laid out the pattern, remembering how the thin sheeting catches in the air, so light, fluttering down like fairy wings to settle on the carpet. None of the pieces had been cut out, indicating that the hat had never been made before. Undaunted I started snipping away. A brief moment of pause when I wondered about hems - should I allow extra space for seams? Who knows. It'll all be fine.
I’m feeling so grown-up. A hat. I’m making a hat!