“You’re going to need to buy two of everything. Sisters don’t like to share their stuff.”
That was the first piece of advice I remember after I’d given birth to Ula.
I remember it because it was the first piece of advice that I thoroughly rejected. There was no way I was going to buy two identical toys for each kid. They could learn to share. I wasn’t feeding the greed.
And I kept to that.
Until it came to the sewing machine.
Sewing is really not my thing. But when Saoirse was two, something came over me. I watched how she studied color and texture, how she’d notice silhouettes and the way a piece of fabric would hang.
“Saoirse needs a sewing machine,” I informed Bob one evening. I had two hundred dollars my grandfather had sent me as a combination birthday/Christmas gift.
“She’s two,” he reminded me.
“If she’s going to use it, I need to know just enough to teach her. And it’ll take me that long to learn.”
I had the idea in my head that if I could just learn the basics – how to thread it, how to make it go forward and backward, I could put that tool into my child’s hands one day, and she’d work wonders. So I used my grandfather’s money to buy a machine.
And darn if I wasn’t right. I taught myself to sew a little, and Saoirse watched my every move. Before long she assumed ownership of the machine and began making dolls, pillows, curtains and clothes.
And then I started observing Ula.
If an interest in textiles and fashion is genetic, it skipped a generation, that’s certain. I get dressed in the dark by grabbing whatever happens to be hanging from the nearest hook. But like her sister, Ula seemed to think there wasn’t a thing in the world that couldn’t be improved upon with a needle and thread. Then I started perusing old photos of her. From the time she was a little kid, she was making her own clothes…Even if the inspiration was the “t-shirt” bags we used in the cafe:
Or a few scarves scrounged from a thrift store:
And as much as I believe siblings must learn to share, I believe that artists and craftspeople are entitled to their own tools.
So on her twelfth birthday, we bought Ula her own sewing machine.
Soon, our house had two complete fashion design studios:
Two heaps of fabric
Two sewing machines
Two dress forms
Two ironing hams, two french curves, two cutting matts, the list goes on and on.
But this post is about Ula.
And this week, she turned 15.
And she walked downstairs the afternoon before her birthday, and took my breath away.
In the course of a single night, she made herself a new dress to wear for her birthday dinner.
No more silly t-shirt bag shirts.
No more ersatz fashions knotted from play scraps.
Like her sister, when she wants a look, she goes to her studio and figures out a way to bring it to life. She and Saoirse go back and forth, analyzing fabric and cuts, measurements and finishing techniques.
They don’t share tools, but they do share a passion.
Happy birthday, baby girl.
