Charming Denim

About three months ago, my mom made four denim bags for my cousins. They were cute tote bags to carry their Bibles and notebooks in for church. She used old jeans and skirts to put these bags together, and the finished products were adorable. There was a ballerina bag with a tutu frill around the top. A robot bag that was absolutely to die for. A pink bag with flowers, made out of one pink jeans that, ten years ago, had been my absolute favorites. And an elegant pink and white bag for the oldest. All of them were bags I would have paid good money to own for myself. They were beautiful. Each bag had it's owner's name embroidered on the top. My mom got a fancy embroidery machine for Christmas a few years back, and she loves using it! She used it for these bags and has been exploring different uses for it ever since. When she saw me admiring my cousin's bags, she offered to make one for me. I had a raggedy pair of shorts that were ready to be recycled, but I didn't want to give them up just yet. She said "Oh, we can make a bag out of that! It'll be cute!" For the next several days she and I looked through hundreds of designs, trying to pick out the perfect one for my bag. I finally convinced her that I liked the picture of a girl, standing in the wind with the word "Charm" written next to her. She agreed that it looked very me, and began to plug the design into the embroidery program.

This machine is fantastic. All you have to do is put your design into the computer, send it to the machine, and the machine does all the work. Changing the colors is really the only thing you have to do manually, so it's nice to put it on and let it run while you do other things. This is exactly what my mom did when she began to embroider the lady on my bag. Every now and then I'd poke my head in to check on it, but I had other things to do as well. My grandparents were coming over for supper and I was helping mom prepare. It was a busy night that flew by in a rush. By the next morning, I'd almost forgotten about the little embroidered lady.

I was in my room just before lunch when I heard mom and grandma talking. "It's hardly noticeable." I heard grandma saying.

"But she'll be so disappointed!" Mom's voice answered. I walked out and smiled at them both.

"Morning!" I went and sat down on the chair nearest the cutting table where Mom and Grandma both stood. I hardly noticed my jeans, folded discretely under my mother's hand. Both women turned and looked at me. Grandma smiled and greeted in turn, moving to sit in another chair across the room. Mom still stood at the table. She greeted me as well but the room was obviously tense. I looked between them both and asked "What happened?" Obviously something had. Mom smiled a little awkwardly, the way she does when she's trying not to laugh. She walked towards the kitchen calling "Nothing!" I was surprised, but noticed my jeans and decided to take a look anyway.

"Is this my bag?" I asked. Mom hurried back towards the table.

"No. No! Shoo!" she exclaimed but I'd already opened the jeans to expose the finished embroidered lady. Mom looked upset, and tried to explain "I didn't have the right colors, but that looked close enough when I compared them!" She'd gotten the shadowing too dark, both under the skirt and under her arm. I stared at the design for a minute before looking up and smiling a little.

"It's okay, mom. I'll just tell everyone she's French."