My first machine

This was my mom's Singer 328K from the late 60's. This is where it all began. The machine I learned to sew on. It's a heavy duty machine with all metal gears inside a "portable" aluminum frame. It was definitely designed to be a workhorse, and they still fetch about $100 used. My mom once commented that "you never really know what your kids will pick up from you." I always considered myself to be a good blend between my mom's art and craft skills and my dad's engineering and math skills.

My parents had a 4-bedroom house in Kingwood. I had two rooms (a bedroom and a playroom) and the 4th room was my mom's sewing and painting room. My dad had built her this amazing built-in cabinet with a huge table top that lowered onto an island of drawers. I loved playing under the table when my mom would sew - collecting the scraps she discarded to create things for my stuffed animals and dolls.

I remember struggling to reach the pedal when she first let me sew on it.  I probably surpassed my mom's sewing skills sometime in high school, at which point she had long since retired from sewing and crafting and it had become "my" hobby.  In my first year of college I wondered what I could do with such a skill set and artistic ability, as I had zero interest in the fashion industry.  Though I later decided that the theatre/film industry wasn't a good fit for me, I was lucky my education coincided with the rise of the internet and was able to find other niches to apply my skills.