When my daughter was in the 7th grade her Home Ec  class did a section on sewing. Even though she had been raised in a house with a sewing machine and had worn many clothing items sewn by her mother she came home from school with all the enthusiasm and excitement of a child who had just discovered cookies for the first time. She was so excited that she told us she really, really, really wanted a sewing machine for her Christmas gift that year. Because we always tried to keep our princess happy we bought her one. She was thrilled. She put it in her closet. It sat there for 14 years.

In many ways my daughter is like her father. One of the traits they share is what I call “faucet cleaning.” Faucet cleaning became a family code word one day when we were expecting my out of town in-laws to arrive and I was way behind on the house preparations. I still needed to fold laundry, vacuum, pick up toys and  make the bed. I asked Recliner Man to help me and gave him the list to choose from. I was running around like crazy getting things done, all the while wondering where he was and which items I wouldn’t need to worry about. After completing the entire list by myself I went and found him. He was hard at work scrubbing the water deposits off the back side of the kitchen sink faucets. Oh yes, I was sooooo worried his folks would come in the kitchen, twist their heads around just so, and see the water deposits!  Since then he has perfected the ability to work very hard at anything but what is really needed to be done. The time came that my daughter had something that she needed to do but didn’t really want to do and being Daddy’s Little Girl she did her own version of faucet cleaning. She pulled out the sewing machine and taught herself to sew.

With that act of procrastination Anodyne Design was born. She now sells purses and card wallets on Etsy. I love her card wallets and was very happy when she made one just for me. They are the perfect size to hold business cards. I’m really impressed with her sewing skills and quite proud of her.