By SUSAN DROMEY HEETER,
Joyful Musings
Are you ready for the new? The new day, the new week, the new month, the new year? New is such a fabulous, hopeful word – it’s NEW, it’s fresh, it’s not been used ever before.
It’s rare I buy new; I’m a thrift shop aficionada, I prefer the vintage, the lived, the seasoned of goods. But, on occasion, in my quest for “new to me” I’ll find something tossed that is new in all senses, in all definitions. And my latest new? A Singer Sewing Machine, still packed in the original box, with styrofoam, with user manuals, even with a warranty. And, dear musers, I scored.
First of all, I am not a seamstress, I can barely thread a needle. But, as it’s a new year, and because over the past years, I have found several cashmere sweaters, I purchased this machine as it seems time for me to put those sweaters to use. I cut them up into rectangles and, with the help of this new and fabulously simple machine, I am transforming those sweaters into a blanket so soft, so joyously cozy, I’ll want to sleep forever, which, honestly, is nothing new but with a cozy cashmere wrap? Oh, that is divine.
And it’s glorious to practice a new skill, to work with stitches and seams and a machine that promises so much. I am enthralled by Project Runway, amazed when people can adjust, mend, tailor, create. And this is my year to try something new, to start off with straight lines and perhaps zig and zag, adjust and serge ahead. What fun.
So, musers, as you start the new, celebrate a skill new to you: sewing, skiing, snowshoeing, writing, loving life. I muse you will.
Susan Dromey Heeter is a writer from Dover who recently let her hair go au natural white. Writing has been her passion since her English majoring days at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Dromey Heeter has lived in The Netherlands, Alaska and currently basks in all things New England, including the frigid winters. An avid swimmer, Dromey Heeter’s great passion is to bring back body surfing as most children have no idea how to ride waves without ridiculous boogie boards.