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Kelly Vukelic lifted a strand of fabric. She passed her needle under it, and tunneled through the tiny opening with a trailing tail of white thread. Looping back around, she pulled and tightened. Kelly, 14, had just completed a hem stitch.
"It's a great stitch," said Nancy Tafoya. The trick, she said, is to keep the needle from piercing the fabric all the way through. "The nice thing about it is, once you get going on it, it goes very quickly. It makes almost an invisible hem."
Tafoya was leading a workshop on the basics of hand sewing an almost-forgotten craft at a time when many people would rather buy a new item than mend an old one. But Tafoya urged participants in the recent Ferguson Library workshop to hone their hand-sewing skills.
"All sewing can be done by hand," said Tafoya, who began sewing when she was 6, creating garments for her Barbie dolls. "When I was a little girl, it was what you could create. So I learned how to sew. I learned how to knit. I learned how to crochet. I loved it. I absolutely loved it."
A former commercial banker who now devotes much of her time to sewing and sewing workshops, Tafoya is a member of the American Sewing Guild.
"It's our view," she said, "that, particularly in this economy, it's a pity to get rid of the garment just because you don't know how to fix it."
Workshop participants agreed.
"What I like is the stuff you can wear," said Stamford resident Rhea Davison, a sewer who said the workshop taught her more about mending.
"I hope there's another class," said Sarah Widlak, also of Stamford. "I will go now and get my thread and my needle and start practicing."
DO YOU HAVE A HOBBY you've picked up again after letting it go for a while? Does the economy have anything to do with your renewed interest? Comment below and start the conversation.
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