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My mother made me a skirt to wear on my twelfth birthday.

My parents took me out - alone, without my sister and brother - to a very fancy grown-up dinner at a restaurant with white cloth napkins and tablecloths. I ordered baked ziti (still my favorite to this day) and afterward, we went to a touring production of Camelot at our local theater.

I remember all of it with incredible clarity, especially my skirt.

It was made of pink cotton lawn sprayed with vines of small, darker pink rosebuds, embellished with eyelet white lace that was, in turn, hand-threaded with dusky rose satin ribbon. It was a pattern from Gunne Sax, that iconic 80’s clothing brand that was out of our family’s financial reach at the time.

I longed for a Gunne Sax of my own. And so, my mother made me one.

A wonderful seamstress to this day, my mom often put her hand to making my clothing when I was a girl. There was the ensemble I wear in a photograph that ran in our local newspaper - me, holding my violin, all braces and long, awkward limbs.

I’m 10 years old, and I am wearing a tiered skirt of black cotton, a white collared blouse and a red vest. All made by my mother.

The day before her hysterectomy at age 28, my mother stayed up until dawn making me a costume to wear in my school play. It was third grade, and I was Henny Penny in my class production of “The Sky Is Falling.” My mom was under the knife when I took the stage, but I was clad in her love nonetheless.

Just before I left home to strike out on my own as an adult, my mother hand-sewed me a double-wedding ring quilt, one of the more intricate and traditional quilt patterns. Each piece was touched by her hands, and sewn with her minute needle.

It lays on my bed to this day.

I resisted this domestic art for many, many years, declaring myself unsuited to the detail-oriented and painstaking process of sewing. Too impatient, I said. Too undomesticated.

In truth I was intimidated. How could I not be, with such a model before me? How would I ever measure up to the perfection of that pink Gunne Sax skirt with its hand-woven ribbons?

Years later, I have my own daughter. Not too long ago, I felt the urge to create something. Something homemade, something with my mark on it. So I took up hand-embroidery.

Once I started stitching, I learned the value of the slow, rhythmic push-and-pull of a needle. It cleared my mind, slowed my heartbeat. I don’t know why, but that hardly matters. What does matter is that it awakened in me the desire to create.

From the chain stitch and the stem stitch, I crafted handmade gifts for my daughter, niece and nephew. And for my mom.

I sent her tea towel I embroidered, and she called me to thank me.

“I am so proud of you!” she said, her voice full of tears.

They are links now, I see, these stitches. My mother always pressed me to learn, to be patient, to make something with my hands. I scoffed, telling her my craft was made from the alphabet and the power of my imagination.

But now, as I make primitive, stuffed “monsters” for my own child, I understand that the skirts and the costumes and the quilts were all made from love.

The day I finished sewing silly buttons eyes onto a lumpy, three-armed creature that emerged awkwardly from my barely used sewing machine, my daughter clutched my creation to her heart.

“I love him, Mommy,” she said, eyes huge and solemn. “If I ever lost him, I would be so sad!”

So I made her another.

She sleeps at night with them tucked under her chin. And as I watch her, I imagine my mother in the hospital the day the doctors took away her womb, and me, clad in her handiwork.

by A.L. Hatch

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Photo graciously provided by the author, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved