Grandma's Sewing Basket - #fridayflash

MAYBE she wasn’t holding her tongue right.

Maybe the end of the thread was frayed. Maybe she needed to lick it again.

Ellie squinted at the thread. She had just cut it a few moments ago. It seemed square. She licked it again, ran it between her fingers to make a nice flat end and tried to poke it through the eye. “Careful,” she heard Grandma say. “Be patient. You can do it.”

The thread bumped against the needle and bent.

Ellie fumed. Why on earth was it so difficult to thread a needle?

“Put your glasses on,” Grandma said.

Ellie blew her nose and pouted. She didn’t want to put her reading glasses on. She was still trying to believe she was too young for reading glasses, even though she was 49 and had to hold books farther and farther in front of her.

“Dear, your arms aren’t long enough to thread that needle without glasses.” Ellie could picture her grandmother saying that. She would be sitting on the bed beside Ellie, sitting straight, properly dressed in a polyester pant suit, a handmade apron and knee-highs. Ellie sat on the bed cross-legged, in her underwear and a ratty t-shirt. Beside her was Grandma’s sewing basket.

All she wanted to do was fix a hole in her good blouse so she could wear it in court tomorrow. That’s all. Was that too much to ask? It was bad enough that she was stuck at home with a head and chest full of yellow phlegm and her voice sounded like she’d swallowed a rather large and noisy frog; could she not even thread a needle? Obviously not. She might be a full-fledged partner in one of the city’s busiest law offices but a seamstress she was not.

“You are good at so many things. You can’t be good at everything,” Grandma said.

So why had Ellie inherited Grandma’s sewing basket? Why not one of the grandchildren who would actually use it once in a while?

Grandma had 31 grandchildren. Many of them could sew as well as she could. Almost all of them possessed some ability with a needle and thread. Or they could cook as well as Grandma. Or keep their houses spotless.

“Grandma you’re wrong. You’re good at everything. Everything!” Ellie croaked. “I don’t know why you gave this darn basket to me.”

Ellie reluctantly put on her reading glasses. She had to admit, she could now actually see the needle. She licked the thread, ran it through her fingers, unconsciously stuck out her tongue and tried to put the thread through the eye of the needle.

It bumped the side and bent.

Ellie resisted the urge to cry.

“Maybe it’s that cheap needle you’re using,” Grandma said. “Where did you get that, Wal-mart?”

Ellie nodded. Grandma shook her head.

“You get what you pay for and Wal-mart sells crap.”

“But Grandma,” Ellie said out loud, “you’ve been dead for 22 years. Wal-mart hasn’t been in Canada that long. I don’t think you shopped in a Wal-mart in your whole life!”

There was no answer.

Ellie had bought the pack of needles yesterday on the way home from work, thinking she might need one to fix her blouse. Grandma had left the sewing basket jam-packed with notions but over the years it had slowly depleted, even though Ellie hardly ever opened it.

She looked in the basket to see what she could scrounge. Sitting on top of bobbins and spools of thread and bits of fabric was a paper folder in the shape of a glass milk bottle. “Compliments of Ideal Dairy Ltd.” was printed on the front. The folder was old. It looked like it was made in the 1950s or maybe even the 40s. Ellie opened it. Inside were two foil samples loaded with sewing needles. “A stitch in time saves nine!” it read, quite cheerily.

Ellie smiled. She had never noticed the folder before – not that she spent much time looking through the basket, but still. Grandma had probably got the sampler from a dairy sales rep. She and Grandpa had run a dairy farm, way back in the day, and Ideal was likely the dairy they sold their milk to.

Ellie had fond memories of the farm. The smell of fresh hay; the sound of cattle lowing; the taste of milk, straight from the cow; the sight of Grandma hanging clean white sheets on the clothesline; the feel of her soft, sturdy arms as she enveloped Ellie in a warm hug.

“Okay Grandma, I get it. I’ll use one of your needles.”

Ellie pulled one of the needles out of its package, the one with the biggest eye. She cut a fresh end on the thread, licked it and smoothed it between her fingers. Then she held her breath and stuck the thread through the eye of the needle.

Ellie stared at the needle for a moment, dumbfounded.

She sewed the hole in her blouse without further incident. Her work wasn’t tidy as Grandma’s was but it did the job. The hole was fixed. Ellie cut the thread with Grandma’s good sewing scissors, then tied a knot in the thread and hung her blouse in the closet. She returned the thread, scissors and Ideal Dairy sampler to the blue wicker sewing basket, and placed it back in the closet where it wouldn’t likely see daylight for at least another six months.

Exhausted from the task and wretched with her cold, Ellie lay back on the bed, closed her eyes and thought of Grandma. Thought how she was always there for her, always was, always would be. Thought of the farm, the sewing sampler and the wicker basket in the dark closet.

“Oh Grandma,” she said. She pushed the covers aside, sat up and went to the closet. Ellie pulled out the sewing basket and brought it with her back to bed, where she curled her arms around it, like a snuggle pillow, and fell into a deep sleep.

She dreamed of sheets flapping in a country breeze, sparkling white against a brilliant blue sky, and of a cool hand touching her fevered brow.