Thirteen years ago, my mother bought me a very nice Bernina sewing machine. At that time in my life, sewing clothes for toddlers and quilting occupied much of my time. My machine saw mostly pretty cotton fabric for little girls and lightweight denim for my son’s rompers. On occasion I made little tote bags to carry swim suits to the pool or baby doll blankets.

Today, I pulled out my Bernina sewing machine to do some mending. Who would have guessed 13 years ago that I would one day mend sheep coats on my machine. During the winter months when we feed hay to the sheep, I like to keep coats on them. This keeps their fleeces free of vegetation matter. Over the years, the coats get torn and their elastic gives out. The past few days, I have finally tended to some long over due sheep coat mending. With coats on all winter, the fleeces will be beautiful for this spring’s shearing.