Sew Cooperative

I'm supposed to be sewing, not blogging. But my (middle) brother is getting married this weekend, and I'm making him a jean blanket. It's tradition. I make a jean blanket for each one of our siblings that gets married. Sometimes, I get it done in time for the wedding, sometimes it's for Christmas five years later.

What do you do with a jean blanket? Well, it's for picnics and fireworks shows and camping and tossing into the trunk of your car to have when you need and not needing to care if it gets grass or ketchup or mud on it. It's for playing with babies on the lawn, and for draping over coolers and for putting down on over car seats that are too hot in July or too cold in January.

I've made a lot of jean blankets. I've made them all on the same sewing machine. This one is going to be a big one. I want my brother to get a lot of mileage out of it. I know he will do his best. He's the hunting-fishing-camping-hiking-outdoorsy kind of guy, and he found himself a like-minded gal. (I really like her.)

When I pulled out my machine to get started, I said a little prayer that it would play along nicely. I've had this machine for fourteen years. My husband bought it for me when we had hardly anything. It isn't fancy or schmancy, just a basic Singer workhorse.

Over the years, I have spent a lot of time working that workhorse. It's getting cantankerous in its old age, but it still gets the job done. When it's in the mood. Every time we talk seriously about replacing it, I end up backing out. After all, it still can get the job done.

So, today, I am really, really, really grateful that my "old gray mare" of a sewing machine has been cooperative and trucked along all day with nary a complaint. I didn't have time for it, and I am glad I got as far along on this jean blanket as I did. Not done, of course (post blog, then go sew), but within sight. I'm grateful for my husband, who bought it for me in the first place, and who keeps offering to make room in the budget (or tax return, or...) for a new, more compliant machine. And I am so grateful for the gal who is marrying my brother. I wonder if she sews?...

What are you blessed with today?