According to my mother, every woman on her side of the family learned how to work a needle and thread, to sew, crochet, and knit. This was less about passion and more about practicality; sewing was a simple hedge against falling into poverty. If you could make or fix clothes, you’d always have a way to earn money. When little else was reliable in life, you could rely on your own two hands. My great-grandmother Annie Lawson—known to me as “Mamaw”—lost her husband at an early age but managed to support herself and two little kids in Birmingham, Alabama, in part by taking in other people’s
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