CAROLYN LESSER

     My grandmother was an immigrant who came to America with her family when she was about eleven, I think.....she became a seamstress until she married at 15, and had her first of five children at 16.  My family lived across the street from my grandparents and when I was six, she asked me to come over to help her with the 100 aprons she made each year for the church bazaar. 

     On that day, each year, when I entered the guest room, the bed was piled high with fabrics of every colour........flowers, leaves, plaids, stripes, my favorite...polka dots......and it became my job to choose the fabrics that went together, for the sashes, the pockets, and then the trims....rickrack....piping....seam binding.....Glorious.....

     When the day for the bazaar arrived, so did a line of women eager to buy Minnie's aprons.....They flew off the long table like they had wings, into the arms of grinning women, ohhh-ing and ahhh-ing over her aprons......

     When I was eleven, she taught me to sew and we had gentle days and afternoons making things....She made most of my clothes and because I loved to twirl, she said, "We'll put more goods into that skirt so it flies out like you like it to do...and I'll make your nightdresses like that too.....and trim them with my lace."

     She made five quilts, before I was born....one for each of her children,....and we never made a quilt together, but when my own children were born, I made a quilt for each..... those glorious days of the aprons returning as I piled fabric on my guest room bed and grinned in remembrance....of Minnie, my beloved grandmother.