When Life Gives You Lemons, Make a Dress

My mother clears the dining room table. The centerpiece goes to the buffet. The candles move to the foyer. The stacks of papers are placed on chairs. I lay out the fabric on the wide expanse of the now-empty table. The smooth jersey is soft and yielding in my hands, pleasantly thick, but not overly so. The pattern is lemons: simple, big, bold yellow lemons. Here and there, deep green stems and leaves bloom between the fruit.

I place the edges together, right side out. Corner to corner, at the far end of the table. Carefully, I line up the selvage and smooth it all the way down, then do the same to the folded edge. Crisp lines of repeating lemons light up the dining room. If I close my eyes, I can smell the summertime: windows open, iced tea brewing, fresh sliced lemons and their citrusy cleanness.

So much for the easy part.

Mom hands me the pattern pieces, bizarre-looking jigsaws that only vaguely resemble the dress they will become.

I tilt my head, pondering. I lay the pattern down. “Like this?” I fiddle with the paper, trying to get it lined up exactly with the folded edge.

She smiles. “Yep, like that!”

She hands me the pins. Slowly, obsessively, I insert them through the paper, through the fabric, and back up again. One, then another. Down the middle, then around the neckline. Coming down the sides, I start to float. Push, through, back up. Through, back up. Like a prayer. Like meditation. The rhythm soothes me. The air comes through the windows. It smells like grass and cricket songs. We are safe here.

This house is a sanctuary. A place to wait and to create. While the pandemic rages on, we work from our computers, we cut, we sew, we make. I'm new to this, but it still feels secure and certain, in the middle of a world so unsure.

All the pieces are pinned, laid out and waiting expectantly. Mom hands me the scissors, orange and smooth and heavy. I hold them like one would hold a delicate piece of ancient pottery. Or a bomb.

“Ready to cut?”

I grimace.

“Everything look right?”

“I think so.”

She glances over my work, checks the pins, checks the layout, consults the instructions one more time. “It never hurts to check. You know what they say: 'Measure twice, cut once.'”

She would know. She taught herself to sew the way she does everything else: carefully, meticulously, paying attention to every detail. Her mother, my grandmother, only knew how to sew by improvising, not with a pattern. She wanted Mom to learn the right way. Mom learned, and now she is teaching me.

We measure twice. And again. I take a deep breath, and start cutting. The metal slices through the fabric with a satisfying snip. snip. snip. Around the corner. So far, so good. snip. Up the side. snip. Around the neckline. Again, again. Until all the pieces are cut and stacked.

Time to sew.

Mom's sewing machine is a wonder of engineering. It has a touchscreen and half a million settings. I set it to a zigzag stitch for the parts that will stretch, and a straight stitch for the side seams. I test the stitches on swatches once, and again. Measure twice, sew once. I feed the pinned edges through the machine, right sides together, the stitches that will make this odd jigsaw into my first handmade dress.

I work my way down the sides. I stop to ask questions. I fold, press, and pin. Slowly, piece by piece, the lemon dress takes shape. I think of the summertime greenness and iced tea on the deck.

I think of my grandmother. I remember her sitting in the sunroom on warm June days, crocheting long strips of plastic bags into mats and water bottle holders and shopping totes. She upcycled before upcycling was cool. I remember her sewing by hand, repairing clothes, adding accents to ornaments. I remember her voice, her laugh, the way she could stretch her money so far and find joy in everything. She would have weathered this year so well: never out of things to do, always curious and creating.

I feel her sitting beside us, down here in this basement room where she used to watch TV while she was staying for the summer. I can almost smell her imperceptible floral scent, see her smile, watching us cut and pin and sew with patterns.

I sit back, roll my neck in a circle, and stand up.

Mom smiles. “I think you’re finished! Just press out those seams.”

I press the seams. I snip the threads. The moment of truth has arrived. I turn the dress right side out, and the bright yellow lemons burst into view. It fits me like a glove, the smooth fabric sliding over my skin. It’s more comfortable than any dress I’ve ever worn. It has pockets. It’s bright yellow. And I made it with my mother.

The time is coming. I can soon wear this dress to a bar, to a party, to a concert. It will be a conversation piece, a spot of bright joy in a newly opened world. The wearing is only part of the joy, though. The measuring (twice) and the cutting (once), the stitching and the pinning, the laughing and the remembering, and the smell of summer: these are what remain.