Stuff My Mother Taught Me

Last April, I  put up a long post about my mother, Kamala Philips, on our companion blog—Archie's Archives.  She was a musical powerhouse, and a lot of what I remember of her was her interest in music, and her interest in my interest in music!  But she was a multi- faceted person, who if she were alive today would certainly have been well-known in her community.  In her community, though, she was famous. 

She taught me a lot about music—mainly advanced harmony, and a lot of music history—but she taught me a lot more.  My siblings were difficult to wrangle, and couldn't easily be made to sit down and listen, whereas I would sit down and listen pretty well. 

Four of my female relatives taught me one interesting skill: ironing clothes.  It was partly the fact that I would iron their clothes without any bullying at all.  For those among my readers for whom the concept of ironing is outside their experience: in the early part of the last century, we had only natural fabrics—cotton, linen, silk and wool—with which to make clothing.  We would wash them by hand, hang them out to dry, especially in the tropics, and then we would have to smooth them out with gadgets called smoothing irons.  These were heavy metal things with a smooth bottom, with which you flattened out the wrinkles in your clothes.  We still have them, of course, but kids are generally kept away from them.  In fact, most of the ironing is handled by dry cleaners, as a sort of side- hustle. 

Being from the Indian Sub-Continent, and being a teacher, my mother and her sisters (and my grandmother) wore sarees, which are basically long rectangles of fabric, 45 inches by 6 yards.  Ironing one of those initially seems a daunting project, but actually you fold a saree in half, iron the folded saree, then fold it again, iron the four thicknesses, fold again, iron the eight thicknesses, and by the time you've finished, it's all done. 

Pants were the most interesting things that I learned to iron.  In addition to being made of cotton, they were often heavy material that took a lot of ironing, and lots of wetting down with a spray bottle.  A major principle of ironing, generally, is that small pieces of fabric, such as the cuffs at the bottom of the legs, could safely be ironed first, with no fear that they would be crushed by subsequent handling.  Same with shirt collars, or waistbands.  Or cuffs of long-sleeved shirts.  So there; even if you don't remember anything else I've said here, that's a major takeaway. 

My sequence for ironing pants, to this day, is

• The inside of each leg.  (Lay the leg with the two seams one on top of the other.)
• The outside of each leg.
• The waist band.  You're done. 

Shirts were the trickiest, and least useful:

• The cuffs of the sleeves.  The collar.  In either order. 
• The front placquet (or placket), where the buttonholes are. 
• The sleeves.  (They aren't as small as the collar and cuffs, but they're smaller than the rest of the shirt.)
• The back, and finally
• The front.
  

 You might not believe this, but my mother also taught me bookbinding!  I had been given a subscription to a boy's magazine (Eagle), and I collected the issues.  We put them together in two volumes—it involved a straight- backed chair, and special waxed binding thread—which were then taken to a printing press, who machine-trimmed the edges; then we made cover boards, glued them on (yes, we had binding tape and everything), hammered the spine into shape, and when it dried, it looked fabulous!

These days, Staples or Alpha Graphics, or Kinko's have the ability to bind your magazines into a volume, if you think the magazines are worth the effort to preserve them.  Most of them will use spiral-binding, which is a lot less trouble and less expensive. In my opinion, comics are probably worth binding, but then you can't sell them, if that's what you want to do (unless someone wants to buy the whole volume.)

Well, happy New Year, all my readers!  I have a feeling things are going to get better, but I have been wrong before!!

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