6 / matters magazine / hearth & home 2019 READ & RECYCLE Featuring Local People, Places and Things that Matter Since 1990 Please address all correspondence to: Visual Impact Advertising, Inc.© P.O Box 198 Maplewood, NJ 07040 973-763-4900 mattersmagazine.com info@mattersmagazine.com Matters Magazine© is owned and published by Visual Impact Advertising, Inc., P.O. Box 198 Maplewood, NJ 07040. Matters Magazineisfree,witheditionsdirectmailed seven times a year to the residents of Maple- wood and South Orange and distributed to businesses and surrounding communities totaling 16,000. Subscriptions are available tonon-residentsfor$30(U.S.)$40(Foreign) annually. No part of the publication may be reprinted or otherwise reproduced without written permission from Visual Impact Advertising, Inc. CIRCULATION VERIFIED BY U.S. POSTAL RECEIPTS. PUBLISHER & EDITOR IN CHIEF Ellen Donker ASSOCIATE EDITOR Joanne DiPasquale ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS Rene Conlon H. Leslie Gilman Sara Knutsen Adrienne MacWhannell COPY EDITORS Nick Humez Tia Swanson CONTRIBUTORS Elaine Durbach, Melanie Finnern, Ellen Kahaner, Tanya Meda, Carol Petrallia, Karen Tedesco FOUNDER & CREATIVE CONTRIBUTOR Karen Duncan Matters heart of the matter F rom time to time I like to under- take a cre- ative pursuit to see if I can enhance my décor with something homemade that doesn’t look homemade. After all, that’s the promise of DIY. When I came into some extra fabric from panels that were made for my living room windows, I figured it was the perfect time to make a few pillows. Although I’ve sewn pillows before, I wanted to up my game by making some piping to go around the edge of the pillows. How hard could it be? To get my answer, I Googled “make piping for pillows” and streamed a number of YouTube videos in my dungeon of a basement, my iPad perched next to my grandmother’s 1951 Singer sewing machine. Then I practiced and finally tried making piping with the actual fabric I’d be using. Let me just say that I always start my sewing projects with optimism, then end up ripping out as many seams as I’ve sewn and start again. It’s lots of trial and error. That’s because my sewing skills are basic. I only attempt projects that require straight lines, like cat toys, napkins and win- dow swags. Had it not been for Mrs. Otto, I doubt I would have any ability at all to use a sewing machine. She was my home ec teacher in junior high school and spent half the year teaching us how to cook and bake and the other half how to sew. It was all girls ex- Sew Simple? Putting my junior high skills to use BY ELLEN DONKER cept for Tom Bredenbach, the first boy to challenge the status quo at our school. I still have my first sew- ing project – a tote bag that I made with some cute seersucker print I had got- ten at Cloth World, back when every town had a fabric store. Most of what I remember about the class is Mrs. Otto yelling at us to stop dropping the presser foot and racing the machine. That’s what kids in junior high do when they’re bored. While I was learning to use a sewing machine, my friend Santa Cavaliere was turning out wool suits and blouses to perfection. I attribute it to her parents owning a textile fac- tory in Paterson and being able to choose whatever fabric she wanted. But Santa simply had the talent and a good machine, and was a perfectionist to boot. If she and I still lived near each other I would’ve sought her help with my pillows. But I was on my own here and once I finished the first one, with a zipper no less, I surveyed the finished product. To be honest, it was pretty nice if you didn’t look too closely and I admit to a bit of bragging to my family. But I did have a few things I needed to improve upon for pillow #2 and that one went more smoothly. I mentioned my project to Léana Lu of Sew Leana. She holds sewing classes in South Orange and I’ve been threat- ening to join one for a while. I think she gave me some credit for trying to embellish my pillows. And when I asked her if I should replace my beast of a sewing machine (they were built solid back in the day!) with one that does 235 different stitches, she recommended against it. Apparently a new machine won’t help me sew any better. I still have a lot of fabric left and am feeling the itch to sew again. Perhaps I will make a table runner – no zippers or piping required. After all, how hard could it be? My first sewing project in junior high home ec class. I challenged myself by sewing these pillows with piping and a zipper.