My Life of Convenience

Needle and thread, 

once as necessary 

as hammer and nail. 

There was a time

when clothing, sewed by 

a seamstress or tailor, 

were sewed by hand 

needle and thread 

dipping and diving 

through fabric 

    ~ perhaps silk, 

    ~ denim

    ~ or even a flour sack. 

Those days are long gone, 

my needle and thread 

still needed for replacing 

a button, mending a hole 

in socks, or lifting a hem

in my convenient life. 

“Most of the time occupied in sewing. It seems as if 

there was no end of that branch of work in this house.”

~ Ellen Birdseye Wheaton, diary 1851