photo by Amy Cantrell
My aunt Amy, a professional photographer (www.amycantrell.com), took this picture of my grandma Lillian’s hands – my mom’s mom. She was near the end of her life, living with the ravages of Alzheimer’s when it was taken. Those hands that had known a sewing machine so intimately spent those last days repetitively folding and unfolding things.
I have only hazy memories of, as a young girl, being in her sewing room in her red brick house in Atlanta, Georgia. Most of the room was taken up by her big work table, with storage underneath. I remember her showing me how to use carbon paper and a roller to mark pattern lines on the fabric for cutting.
Grandma Lillian made all of her own clothes. She sewed all the time. She had a sewing machine set up behind the counter at the used bookstore she owned. I remember her in her matching polyester outfits, blonde curled hair, with just as easily a laugh or scowl on her face. She liked her TV game shows, playing scrabble, and made the best baking soda biscuits ever.
She was tall and thin, and when I was a teenager I could fit into some of her clothes and we would play dress-up.
The rustle and feel of pattern paper, pinking shears and thimbles are all reminders of her.
As I delve into the process of sewing more deeply now, I feel a new/old connection with her grow – our hands sharing a memory of a similar landscape.
treasures
On a recent trip down to L.A. to visit my Aunt Amy, I asked her if she had any of grandma’s sewing stuff she could part with. She gifted me with some treasures.
p.s. all the color photos of Lillian were taken by my mom, Grace.
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