22nd Day, Fall 510 A.V.  After her major shopping trip the day before, Airil decided that today was a good day to stay inside. The clothes and supplies from her venture were scattered all around the room. She'd woken in the middle of the night from another series of nightmares and had been grateful that she'd had something to do. Out came the sewing kit and cloth, the rest of her night had been spent, curled in the chair, stitching away. It really had been a long time. She remembered the exercise being both easy and boring. Yet Airil found, as she began, that she couldn't make either straight lines or even stitches. She'd pass the needle through the fabric from the opposite side, taking a few pokes through the fabric before she got it to come out in the right spot, position it to pass through again and more often than not she'd end up stabbing herself. Not to mention that she wasn't very good at threading the needle. Every time she needed to re-thread it, she took several minutes to get the thread through the tiny hole. As the hours passed, the stitches had grown neater but she was still having a hard time keeping the lines straight. After filling up a length of fabric with nothing but lines, she'd gotten a little too bored. Now she sat with a glove in her hand, fretting. The gloves needed to be fixed in order to work for her. As they were, they refused to fit her hand properly, not with the webbing between her fingers. They were designed for humans. But she certainly couldn't walk around without them, someone would notice her scar before too long. She looked at the glove in her one hand and the shears in her other. It wouldn't be so bad. Her stitches were looking all right, and uneven lines wouldn't be too noticeable on such a small garment. She held the shears up to one of the gloves fingers and resisted the temptation to close her eyes, unused to modifying clothing. Snip, the shears cut through easily and soon all the fingers were gone. It already looked better than the gloves she was replacing, at least she'd had scissors this time. She folded the edge over to create a hem and carefully pinned it in place. The process was repeated for the other glove. She laid them in her lap to assess them and decided they were ready for stitching. The memory of her mother showing her a technique to hide the stitches rose in her mind but she couldn't remember exactly how it was done so she settled for a regular running stitch, the one she had practiced all night. She threaded a matching color through her needle and set to work. As she stitched she imagined the intricate patterns she could sew into the glove, if she ever got that good. The imagining certainly helped to pass the time. Before Airil knew it she was done with one of the gloves. It had been a good choice for a first project, being so small and simple. She pulled it on over her hand to look at her handiwork. Her mother would have deemed it passable. The stitches veered off in one spot but the effect almost looked intentional. She decided that she was quite proud of it and picked up the other glove to begin on it, this time trying to get the stitches to mimic those on the other glove. The result was better than she hoped. It seemed she was better at intentionally making curves than she was at straight lines. She looked over at her other clothing and decided she was done for now. Morning had come and gone and her stomach was becoming more insistent. Airil put her sewing kit away, pulled on her newly modified gloves, and left to get some tea and cookies. |
Image: Sewing Forest by Carlos Giraldez
Background: Gift Background III by Imagined Moments
