Reelin' in the years

This weekend Tracey Harris, a University of Derby intern, textile artist and fine art student, is going to be in residence at the North Mill. She has been sharing her ideas and work process with the Mill through her blog on wordpress, Strutts North Mill Internship. This weekend she'll be there in the hope that people will come in and share their personal memories of sewing and will donate a cotton reel to one of the displays. I'll be choosing a reel from my trusted old sewing basket. It's full of colours bought for hemming a particular garment or sewing on a certain button. There are spare buttons for clothes that have long since gone to the charity shop. Needles, pins, bits of ribbon, safety pins, crochet hooks and scissors. I can turn up a hem, sew on a button, mend a tear, do blanket stitch. When I was married my husband was in the fashion business and I lived the seasonal life of A/W and S/S collections. But my confidence in my sewing abilities was destroyed by a needlework teacher who used to throw our below standard sewing out of the window and into the River Irwell below! She also had a habit of throwing scissors across the room!. No wonder I never mastered the art of threading a treadle sewing machine. Luckily my children have inherited their father's talents for making clothes. What part has sewing played in your life?