Monogram Maniac

By Roberta Durra

 I don’t know how it happened, but I’ve become a maniac - a “Monogram Maniac”. Come within 10 yards and I will ask you if you’d like your initials sewn on to your bathrobe, shirt cuffs, backside or your baby’s burp pad. Also know that I will feel slighted if you turn me down.

Lest you think I’m kidding, you should know that I own a state of the art, computerized, Brother Entrepreneur PR 650, 6-needle embroidery machine. This baby is worth more than a 2011 Ferrari 458 Italia. Check the Kelly Blue Book to see the kind of money I’m taking about. Wait! If you’re really going to check the Blue Book, I’d like to revise my previous estimate to, a tad bit more than a used 1999 Volkswagen Beetle – in fair condition, which I also own. But it’s not the price that matters. It’s what my Brother 650 and I do together. We embroider artful portraits of animals, babies, mothers, and national landmarks. 

Most easily and often though, we personalize you up and down by sewing initials onto your everything; from carry bags, to hankies and boxers.

I’ve never really been an “initial person”. I didn’t grow up in a house with monogrammed towels or bed linens. Not to say we didn’t have sewn goods. My mother needlepointed beautiful pillows, and once crocheted an eye-catching toilet paper cozy for the guest roll. But she wasn’t into embroidered names. In grade school when she did put my name on to my pencil case, it was in pen on a roughly torn piece of beige masking tape. To be fair, she had lovely handwriting. During the years my son went to over night camp I was never surprised when he came home with an empty duffle bag. All because I never thought to put his name on his socks, tee shirts, shorts or underwear. This was before Stella.

Stella is the name I have given my embroidery machine. It wasn’t easy naming her, because unlike babies, there are not many embroidery machine name books out there. So I chose a hardy Latin name, meaning, “star”. And a STAR she is. Stella is diligent, reliable, and has a strong work ethic. She has an easy to read screen, and performs with quality precision. I appreciate this, and tell her often.  Sometimes I treat her to a new bobbin and a dab of extra oil.

It’s a love hate thing I have going with embroidery. I dream of owning a quaint, French embroidery shop in Paris. In my shop I serve colored candy mints and have Edith Piaf playing in the background. The front window is filled with vintage embroidered table linens and monogrammed French aprons. I have hundreds of beautifully colored spools of thread displayed on a wooden racks, and oversized floral oil paintings hanging on walls. Lovely, stylish women are regulars at my shop, and sit beside me on my shabby chic couch and admire my white linen embroidered pillows. We discuss life, art and theater. We sip tea from delicate china and keep our pinky fingers out to the side. In this dream I never see myself actually working.

I keep trying to quit embroidering for other people. The problem is I keep accepting work. And if I don’t embroider for a while I have to reacquaint myself with Stella once again.  Once, so much time had elapsed between jobs that I called Stella, “Sheila” for a week, and you know that didn’t go over well. This was when I had to go to Banana Republic and purchase 3 expensive golf shirts because Stella and I ruined the original shirts the client brought in. Coincidence? I think not. How on top of your game would you be if your boss called you the wrong name all day? I understand this, because people often call me Rebecca instead of Roberta and it definitely twists my bobbin.

 

Because I say YES to everything and everyone, and completely underbid, my husband has started clocking my work. This is very tricky because now I have to be accountable for the time I put in. Now I have to sneak in to my sewing studio and embroider in the middle of the night so he won’t know I mistakenly bid 30 minutes for a job that so far has taken 2 ½ days.

Although embroidery is a solitary experience it can also be a wonderful way to make new friends. A man I’d never met recently inquired as to the charge for embroidering a name on to a lab coat. In an attempt to limit the small jobs I take, I passive-aggressively quoted him thirty dollars instead of simply saying “no”. This is the equivalent of being asked to pay $50.00 for a small coffee at Dunkin Donuts. My new friend responded immediately, inquiring about the state of my mental health. Can you imagine? A complete stranger caring so much!

And then there’s Murphy’s Law, which I think was discovered when someone accidentally embroidered a W instead of M onto Murphy’s boxer shorts. If a person comes to my house holding an heirloom christening gown that once belonged to their husband’s great, great grandmother’s, sister’s baby, and asks me to embroider a letter on to the garment I speak calmly and deliberately as though I am talking to an intruder, and I’m a seasoned officer with the LAPD. I say,

  

“OK, lady. Turn around, slowly… hands up, and put the100 year-old heirloom thing above your head…that’s right, keep it in sight, and now walk to the door and leave my house.”

I do this because I know the minute I touch this treasure, a sharpie will materialize out of thin air and irreparably stain the garment. That, or the second the owner leaves, the dress will suddenly disintegrate from previously undocumented moth holes. Or most likely, (and this has happened) a mud puddle will suddenly appear in my living room, and I will slip and fall making the white un-washable heirloom christening gown look like a football jersey that lost in sudden-death overtime.

My grandmother, Mary, sewed beautiful wedding veils. This may be where I came to love fabric. My own hands-on sewing adventure started in 5^th grade when my friend Randi and I took an 8-week sewing class. We made identical long sleeve dresses using 100 percent cotton fabric that wasn’t prewashed for shrinkage. The day after the last sewing class, we wore our dresses to school. My dress was so tight around the legs it took an hour rather than the usual ten minutes to walk to school.  I shuffled using baby steps so as not move my legs too far forward, and rip my dress.  When I sat down and put my arms on my desk, my elbows shot through the seams. I didn’t realize this though because I had neither feeling, nor blood-flow in my arms because my sleeves were sewn so tightly. Randi did not experience any blood-flow issues because her older sister, Adrian, sewed her dress.

So if you have pants to hem, a wedding dress to design or a designer gown you’d like knocked-off, don’t call me. But if you’d enjoy having a first, middle and last initial lovingly sewn on to a napkin, golf shirt or the butt of a diaper cover, just ask. I’ll quote you a price somewhere between $5.00 and the cost of a summer home in Malibu.  And I’ll have it done in no time.