the seamstress's small collection

the seamstress reads in the morning and on slow afternoons. her books are small because her room is small; she has no shelf, only a basket beside the chair. when she sews, she puts the open book under the basket lid to keep her place.

most read: the manual of plain sewing, which has been in three different hands before hers, and the workroom day-book in which she records every garment, with names. least read: the small book of verse, given her as a gift; she does not read verse, though she keeps the book because it was kind of the giver to think so.

she takes orders from the widow regularly and from the keeper seasonally. the binder rebound her day-book once, in cloth, from her own offcuts. she has lent her thread-history to the apothecary twice, who finds the chapter on linen useful for bandages.

field note · in pencil, in the day-book mend small. mend often. a garment that has been mended seven times is not a ruined garment; it is an old friend with seven stories. the worst tear is the one that goes unmentioned.