Back in October 2022, I wrote about darning socks, something I’ve been doing for decades. In August of the following year I wrote about me mending shirts, or, more accurately, sewing on some buttons. That’s just like darning socks: Something I learned to do in childhood. But there was something between those two posts that led me to learn a new thing.
When I went to fix my shirts in 2023, I couldn’t find my needles and thread—they weren’t where they were supposed to be. I knew I’d had them in this house because I’d used then to darn those socks. Impatient and annoyed, I bought a pack of needles of varying sizes (the largest of which appeared suitable for crucifixion…) and some thread. Before I opened the new stuff, and by sheer luck, I found the originals, and I fixed the shirts using them.
Since then, everytime I’ve needed to mend something, I got the sewing supplies out of the place they’re supposed to be, but the other day I was mending something and I looked at the unopened pack of needles and noticed the little thing in the photo up top: A needle threader. I knew what it was, and I saw it every time I got out the sewing supplies, but it never occurred to me to use it.
When I was younger, I had no issues threading a needle. While I may not have succeeded in one attempt every time, my average was pretty good. However, as I grew older and needed reading glasses, it became hard to thread the needle, and yet I still never used that little needle threader. Until the other day.
The first time I threaded the needle that day, I got it on the first try, which I admit was nothing but pure luck, especially because the next threading was one failure after another. At this moment I finally remembered the needle threader. I carefully opened the pack and got it out, and instantly realised I didn’t actually know how to use it. I did what seemed logical to me and it worked instantly, and on the first try with it (and, again, this was after several failed attempts to thread the needle in the "traditional” way).
There’s no reason I never used one before, except, maybe, my mother didn’t use one, and so, I never learned about it. How I managed to nevertheless know what it was is lost in my own distant past, but because I did, I finally realised it might be a much easier way thread a needle, and it definitely is.
Although I’ve only written about it twice, I’ve actually mended various clothing items many times even in just the time I’ve been in this house, and I expect to do that for years to come. As I said in my 2022 post, “One of my core values is to live as sustainably as possible/practical,” which is one of the reasons I repair clothing whenever it’s possible or practical. I come by this naturally: My parents' adolescence was during The Great Depression, and their adult life began in the World War 2 era, so they came from a time when mending and making-do was important. Related, I’m sure, they both were also big on DIY of various sorts, including artistic work. They instilled that ethos in me, too, and to this day, decades after their deaths, I still carry on the values they taught me, and I still carry a love for DIY, self-sufficiency, and also a more modern ethic I added, sustainability.
In context, then, the fact I repair my clothing (among other things…) is no surprise whatsoever. It’s also not a surprise that I took that needle threader and used it successfully, despite never having done so. The only thing I can’t answer is why it took me so long to do that. Now that I have, however, I’ll use it‚ and its inevitable successors—every time I need to thread a needle.
Even now, and even when I’m doing something I’ve been doing for decades, I still learn new things. To me, that’s the best part of this whole story.
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