A Sewing Backstory

Some of the blogs I read are posting their "sewing backstory". Although my sewing mojo is on hiatus, I still enjoy reading about sewing and this subject got me interested. So many sewists out there got their start because women in the family sewed and inspired them. That didn't happen to me. My mother couldn't sew on a button, and we lived far away from any other family. (I still do, why is that?) Anyway, my father's mother did sew and crochet, even though she lived 1,000 miles away. He must have remembered that when he bought me my first sewing machine. We had absolutely no money for clothing, and I was humiliated by my wardrobe during my freshman year in high school. So Dad bought me a machine and I started to sew. During the summers I lived with my sister in the "big" town of Lubbock, Texas, and her neighbor sewed all her---and her two daughters'---clothing. They had gorgeous wardrobes and I learned a lot from them. In college I had no time to sew, but after I married I dragged out the old machine and made a lot of my things. By then I was hooked. I still remember the thrill when my husband bought me a new machine in a cabinet for my birthday! No more dragging the portable out to the dining room table! Post divorce I again had no time to sew, but after my second marriage (15 years later) I got back into it again. Now that I'm widowed (it still feels strange to write that) I hope to really concentrate on learning to sew the right way rather than the fast way. All this time, and I'm still really just a beginner.