Her Fresno Bee Christmas present was a pink sewing machine. It transformed her style
In 1957, seventh-grade girls at Hamilton Junior High enrolled in a semester of sewing where we learned to cut out patterns, stitch seams, darts, zippers, and hems and use an electric sewing machine.
For me, a petite-sized girl before petite sizes existed, my newfound skills could catapult me into the world of high fashion if only I had a sewing machine.
My mother often pumped the pedal on her old Singer, transforming worn house dresses into full length aprons. But I never saw her follow pattern directions as I had learned at Hamilton Junior High. And because I was not allowed to touch her Singer, my sewing dreams waned.
Then one fall day during my sophomore year, I spotted a contest in The Fresno Bee. The prize? A Brothers electric sewing machine! All I had to do was complete a form and mail it to The Bee. By late November, a letter arrived, announcing I had won, followed by a disclaimer: I first had to purchase the sewing machine case.
Undeterred, I wrote back that being a teenager with no job, I could not afford to buy the case. However, I had taken a sewing class, and my skills were quite competent. A week later, I returned from school to find an early Christmas present: a beautiful, pink Brothers sewing machine with an electric foot pedal, sitting on the dining room table.
The next morning my father mounted it into my mother’s Singer cabinet for both of us to use. Then, he drove me to Woolworth’s on Fulton Street where I selected a McCall’s skirt pattern, fabric, thread, pins, scissors and a zipper. Over the next two years, in addition to simple skirts, I sewed two cocktail-length prom dresses, embellishing the pattern with my own designs.
For junior prom, I selected a gauze fabric with bold, multicolored blossoms layering it over white satin and adding green velvet piping around the neckline and waist. For the Senior Prom, I bought a salmon-colored satin fabric. The bodice of the dress was simple, a round neckline and sleeveless. But in the back of the bell-shaped skirt, I inserted a wide pleat and layered tier-upon-tier of cream-colored lace from waist to hem.
When I married, I took my sewing machine with me. Over the next few years, I sewed long evening dresses, a popular 1960s style, and bell-bottom, polyester pants in solid colors and paisley prints, adjusting pattern lengths to my petite torso.
When I started teaching at Clovis High School, I had purchased two Butte knit winter suits using my 25% employee discount at Rodders’ Mademoiselle, and completed my professional wardrobe with a collection of A-line dresses I had sewn during my two semesters of student teaching.
In my second year of teaching, my husband and I started our family. So, out came my pink sewing machine. Working on the kitchen table, I amplified my simple A-line shift pattern, sewing being my only option as maternity dresses did not come in petite sizes (and women teachers were not allowed to wear pants).
Two years and two babies later, my days filled with “Sesame Street,” building blocks, children’s books, trucks and dolls, my sewing needs came to an end. I retired my pink machine to its case and stored it on a shelf in the coat closet of our new home.
And there it sat for 27 years until my daughter, expecting her first child, asked to borrow my sewing machine. I gladly took it down from the closet shelf, and drove it to Roseville. That weekend we sewed curtains for her kitchen windows.
The following weekend I returned to Roseville to help with another project, and was met with a new cream-colored machine sitting on her kitchen table. My Brothers had finally seen its last day, as it was not repairable.
“Look at all this does!” she exclaimed, handing me a booklet of her new machine.
I smiled at her enthusiasm, but admit I felt a tinge of sadness for that precocious, 15-year-old seamstress who had won a pink sewing machine in a Fresno Bee contest.
Dr. Pauline Sahakian is a retired Clovis English teacher, former CSU Fresno English Composition Instructor, CSU Fresno Teacher Education Professor, and UC Merced Writing Project Founding Director. She was 1994 Fresno County Teacher of the Year, a California Teacher of the Year Finalist, and a 2016 California State University, Fresno, Noted Alumni Award recipient. paulinesahakian@outlook.com .
