The request was simple.
“I need a brown tunic,” my son said matter-of-factly.
It was my third and final go-around helping create a character from the Middle Ages, a presentation that marked the culmination of a sixth grade social studies unit. We had cobbled together costumes for a baker and then a breadmaker’s wife when his sisters had completed the same project. Surely there was something around the house that would suffice for his assigned character, an alchemist.
I ran through some ideas that involved recycling old Halloween costumes, none of which were brown.
“It has to be brown, Mom,” he said, unwavering. “They wore only brown tunics.”
Whether or not it was true didn’t matter; it was what he believed.
I realized the only viable solution was to pull out my sewing machine and make the costume. Truth be told, I was still feeling some residual guilt at never having made the Snakeman costume he asked for when he was 4 – a request that seemed beyond my skill set at the time and thus went unfulfilled. This was an opportunity to redeem myself.
A quick stop at the fabric store, and I would be on my way. With a few yards of fabric, I was certain I could whip something up in a night. It would be absolutely perfect!
My plan went awry about three seconds after I stepped into the fabric store. Should I choose cotton or linen? Flannel, or maybe something velvety from the Halloween fabric section? And should it be dark brown? Reddish brown? The choices were overwhelming.
The clerks at the fabric counter must have sensed my panic, as they immediately asked if I needed help. I explained my project, and they pointed me toward linen. “It’s lightweight,” one said.
They asked if I had a pattern.
“I was pretty much just planning to get some fabric and figure it out,” I replied.
They smiled kindly. “There are some very easy patterns for first-timers or if you’re a little rusty,” said the younger woman. The look on her face told me “winging it” was a bad idea. I mumbled something about not having pulled out my sewing machine in 10 years; in fact, I wasn’t sure it would even work.
She flipped through pattern books, describing the details of various options. Ultimately, I settled on the sale pattern; it seemed a bit ridiculous to spend $17 on a pattern for a costume that would be worn for two hours max. Plus, it likely had been more than three decades since I had followed a pattern; it would hurt less to screw up a $1.67 pattern.
The ladies wished me well as I finished at the checkout counter, and I headed home, excited to begin my project.
I opened the pattern and spread several sheets of thin beige pattern paper onto my dining room table, giving myself a little pep talk as I scanned the instructions to ensure I made the correct size. Miraculously, my old sewing machine worked, and I settled down to pinning and cutting the pattern and fabric.
Even more miraculous was the fact that it really was an easy-to-follow pattern, and the result was most definitely tunic-like. With a several-yards piece of jute rope, the costume was complete. My son was thrilled, and the look on his face made every stitch more than worth it.
Sometimes we focus on the wrong things, like the time or expense of making something, or the fact that we are certain there will be flaws. My son wore the tunic every chance he had prior to his school presentation, and quite frequently after. He did not see the flaws that I knew were there. He only knew that he could transport himself in his imagination to other worlds when he wore it. And that made the costume absolutely perfect.
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