Pins and Needles

 Paula's story

Marjorie was a regal woman of means in London, traveling to and from her friends’ country homes for long weekends of games of tennis and gin rummy, followed by long, sumptuous candlelit dinners served by uniformed staff members. At home during the week, she would sweep down the stairs every morning after being clothed and perfumed by her ladies’ maid, to breakfast alone at the massive dining room table, to read and answer her letters in her sun-filled library, and to walk out to the private, flower-filled park across the street from her townhouse, a beautifully ordered garden to which she owned the only key.

Most mornings, after her toilette, her breakfast, and her letter-writing, she would put on one of her many beribboned hats, take up her ruffled silk parasol, make sure her elegant calling cards were snugly inside her bag, and sail out into the street, bound for any of a number of townhouses similar to hers where she would be graciously admitted and where she and a friend would share tea and gossip. What was Lady Haffling thinking, wearing that atrocious get-up to the opera the other night? Is Lord Tinkle really stepping out on his wife, and with the chambermaid, at that? Who is the handsome new barrister in town, and is he looking for a wife? And what on earth could have gotten into Tilly Madison, bobbing her hair like that? It’s quite unseemly, they agreed.

When all topics had been exhausted, and all sweets had been consumed, she would say her good-byes, adjust her hat and her frock, and walk the few miles home, to be greeted by soft music, a soothing bath drawn for her in the perfect temperature, a satin dressing gown, and a light meal, taken in her rooms upstairs beside the fire. 

One afternoon, hurrying home as a light rain began to fall (thank goodness for her parasol!) she passed a tiny girl, dressed in rags, sheltering in a doorway. As she passed, the child called out to her, “Madam, buy some pins?” and held out a paper packet filled with straight pins. Marjorie ignored her, and passed quickly, her skirts rustling.

That evening, as she climbed into bed after a very satisfying meal of a perfectly broiled lamb chop, cheese and toast, accompanied by a glass of fine red wine, she turned off her bedside lamp and settled comfortably into the crisp cotton sheets. But the comfort was short-lived. Suddenly, she felt as if her hands were being pricked by a thousand tiny needles. She rubbed them, she washed them, she spread lotion on them; nothing helped. She tossed and turned all night, and when dawn broke, the pain disappeared. She examined her hands; they looked perfectly normal, and they felt perfectly normal. She wondered if perhaps she had had some kind of reaction to something she ate, or drank.

Soon enough, she forgot the episode, and continued on in her daily routine. Each afternoon, as she walked the same route home, rain or shine, the same child would venture out from the same doorway to plead, “Please, madam, buy my pins,” shakily holding out the paper packets. And each afternoon, she rushed past, muttering under her breath, “As if!”

And each night, as she climbed into bed, the thousands of pricking needles under the skin of her hands would begin, and she would spend the night in pain and agony. And each morning, as her hands returned to normal, she would forget what had happened.

Several days later, as she strolled home from a most satisfying tea of scones and jams and a most satisfying talk with Sally Dearborn (Lord Tinkle was indeed having an affair, and conducting it in a very public, disgusting way!) the ragged child stepped out of the doorway and pleaded, “Please, madam, buy my pins? I can’t go home until they’re all sold.” This time, Marjorie stopped, and a look of enlightenment replaced the glance of disgust that was there just a moment before.

She stared at the tear-stained face of the little girl and said, “I’ll buy them all, every single packet.” It cost her 10 shillings, but it was money well spent. That night, she drifted off into a dreamless, needle-free sleep for the first time in weeks. 

And every day after that, she stopped and bought every packet of pins from the disheveled child, and every night, she slept like a baby. She left it to her ladies’ maid to figure out what to do with the thousands of pins found in her bag.

 

Annemarie's story

He knelt on the rickety chair, elbows on  the dining room table as he watched his mother deftly extract a pin from her mouth and pin her latest creation. Sometimes she said something her lips pursed together over several pins. He never understood what she said wondered how she didn’t swallow any pins. Chop, chop, chop…pin, pin, pin… try it on, then sew, sew, sew …and from flat pieces of fabric she'd made a dress or a fancy costume or even the tiniest blue-striped pyjamas for his teddy bear. When he was four she let him remove the pins which he then carefully replaced in her antique pin cushion, a slightly battered silver hedgehog, that only finished looking like a proper hedgehog once the pins were carefully pushed into the soft velvet body to make the prickles.

   Her ingenuity with needle and thread had provided her with enough income for the two of them and him with a fascination for needles and pins. The only time he remembered his mother being remotely angry with him was when she had a rush job for a film costume and she discovered her pins were rusty and they snagged the delicate thread in the patterned satin fabric for Queen Bess's  ivory cloak.

   He had used the pins for his first experiment. It entailed spreading the skin of a recently skinned, small snake on a long piece of balsa wood, pinning it all round with his mother's best sewing pins and rubbing salt all over the skin. She had not appreciated the fact that he’d returned both the pins and the salt after curing his snakeskin! When he stuck safety pins through his awkward adolescent nose and pushed needles through his tender teenage ears she had gently admonished “just make sure the pins or needles are sterilised first.”

    Twenty years later he sat at the same old oak table, his black eyes flashing with anger remembering her most recent work for a well known couturier. All over the newspapers and on the tv news were photos of the dress - a slinky black number held together with safety pins, worn by a famous actress  for a first night. It was just a year after his mother's tragically early death and the couturier was taking all the credit, with absolutely no mention of his mother who had spent hours looping and pinning the slippery fabric.

     He bent over the table, a tiny sculpting hook in his hand and finished fashioning the clay figure, accurately carving the thin lips, aquiline nose and bushy eyebrows and he regarded it; yes, his mother would have been proud of the likeness.

     He picked up the dented, silver hedgehog pincushion and pulled out -  not a fine pin for delicate muslin, not a flower head pin for thick velvets but a strong nickle-plated steel pin, 1⅜” length, and not bendy - and stuck it firmly into the hand of the clay figure. He pulled out a second strong pin and stuck it in one eye, then a third for the second eye. He vehemently stabbed the clay couturier until it bristled with steel pins and he could almost hear it shrieking; on the table the silver  hedgehog gazed at him, lifeless, it’s faded velvet body deflated and devoid of feeling.

 

Jackie's story

 

There I was in fluffy bedroom slippers wearing a colourful décoltée nightdress with spaghetti straps in poppy red attending “the” social event of the year in the advertising world, surrounded by very fabulous, very chic and so so very influential people. 

I arrived in France at the end of 1971 as an au pair girl,  I was 19.    I went to work for a family living in the new suburbs of Paris.    Cute little pretty houses with 30 year olds and young children, garden lawns and a train  station to central Paris ½ an hour by foot from their house.  It was a little too twee for me and also didn’t live up to my idea of being “in” Paris.   I moved to work for a family closer to the city and met my future husband, Anthony, who was half Greek, from London, and had just got a job working for an advertising company in Paris.  

     In my suitcase as an au pair girl I had brought with me two pairs of jeans, a few tops and warm sweater and a coat.   I had two pairs of shoes though;  a pair of well worn favorite sneakers and a pair of black Mary Jane shoes you know the kind with round toes and ankle strap.     Nothing very suitable for an evening in the very grand Conciergerie of Paris.   We had been invited to a party in this famous Paris monument as part of an advertising agency product launch – we needed to be in evening dress.    But it was a dilemma for me as I was housed and fed as an au pair plus had a little pocket money but I had no such salary as such to afford a new outfit.

 

At a friends house they suggested I try on a pair of pink fluffy slippers, they had feathers sprouting all over the front and were a little too small for me.  I couldn’t possibly wear slippers to this big event but in the end,  if I walked slowly they might just do.   The dress part was a problem but I was able to borrow something.   It was an itsy-bitsy nightdress.    I was young though,  it was long enough but it was certainly not the kind of thing I normally wear, even to bed.    A little torn, unwashed and the colour red was faded but it would have to do.    We found a box of pins and needles, quickly patched up the dress as best we could.

Walking into the magical palace on the ile de la Cité, the medieval residence of French kings and a prison during the French revolution I was in awe.  So many beautiful people, ladies with beehive hair do’s and fabulous dresses and wafts of expensive powders and perfumes.   Taffetas, silks and velvets flowed past in and out of the beautiful venue.    And the men;  so dark, so handsome “so very French” in their evening clothes.      My so-called dress was politely admired and I remember being looked at closely from time to time but I kept my head up high I managed to keep my feet in those “evening shoes”.   I declined dancing though as that could have been catastrophic. To this day I don’t think I realized just how daring it was to turn up to an evening like this in a nightdress and slippers but it remains in my memory and was the very happy beginning of a fabulous time in Paris. 

Geraldine's story

Kathleen was a fine dressmaker and her main skill was cutting and sewing evening gowns, wedding and bridesmaids dresses.

 

This early spring day, at the end of Tuesday morning,  she received a young woman in her workroom who was very upset, nervous and told her, almost in tears :

-       Oh ! Please, please, can you help me.  I’m invited to a very important party next Saturday and I haven’t had time to think of what I was going to wear.  The man I secretely love will be there and I really need to look good.

-       Well, dear Madam, what’s your name ?

-       Judith,  answered the woman.  Her long dark hair lay casually upon her shoulders.  Her complexion was  dark, her almond eyes slit – she could well have been from Asia – and her slender figure reminded one of a reed bending in the wind.

-       Well Judith, what kind of dress would you like and do you have the fabric.  You’re only giving me 3 days, which would make it a fantastic miracle if I succeeded.  By the way, my name’s Kathleen.

-       Judith opened a rough plastic bag out of which she pulled a beautifull vivid orange organdie cloth.  From the bottom of the bag she brought out  a selection of pearls, buttons and beeds of all sorts.  Here she said, still sniffing a bit, do you think you could make someting with this !

-       Well, lets see : is there enough material to  get a dress !  She unfolded the orange organdie and lifted it in front of Judith.  If you don’t want sleeves, this will be all right.  Have you any idea of the style you would like ?

-       No, I havn’t had time to think about it but maybe you have some kind of idea !

-       Well, just stand still and I’ll take your main measurements !  Leave it to me and come back on Thursday morning : we’ll try it on then.

Judith almost kissed Kathleen with relief : her face had calmed down, her tears had dried and oh ! what a lovely woman though Kathleen.  I surely will do my best to make her happy.

As soon as she had left the workshop, Kathleen looked at the organdie, buttons and all and took a pencil and paper and started drawing.  She started designing different shapes, imagining what Judith would look like and after a while, set her choice on the one model she believed would be the best.  Then she looked and the buttons, pearls and beeds and started drawing them around the collar band, the waist and down the skirt at the top of the pleats. 

Then she cut the dress, started  assembling the different parts and getting an idea of what it was going to look like.  By the time she got all this done, she left it all on the table, had a light meal and warned out, went to bed.

On Wednesday morning, the weather was fine, the air transparent, the birds singing and the sun rising quickly above the horizon.  She went downstairs, had a quick coffe and a bowl of cereals and walked straight into the workshop.  As she got nearer the table, she looked at the the dress and oh ! surprise ! it was all basted with a yellow thread.  She was extremely puzzled, as she couldn’t remember going through this stage yesterday.  She thought « Maybe I have a guardian angel » or…

 

Well, let’s not try and think too hard and just take things as they come.  This is a supreme surprise and leaves me a bit of time to do all the other things on my plate.

Again, after a very busy day, Kathleen had a light dinner and exhausted, went up to bed.  Judith was due to come and try the dress next morning.

She woke up feeling good, went down to breakfast and after cleaning up the kitchen, walked into her workshop.

To find what ?  Another surprise !  There were two rows of pearls and buttons around the collar of Judith’s dress, which made it look so smart.  They had been so meticulously sewn on the organdie fabric that, even looking at it closely, you couldn’t see the stitches.  It was as if no pins or needles had been used!

-       Well, this Guardian Angel is just too fantastic.  I wonder how he got in !  Lets wait for Judith to try it on  and see how it fits !

And around 10 o’clock, in walked Judith, looking much happier than the first time.

-       Hello Kathleen, how are you ?  Are we going to be able to try the dress ?

-       Here it is.  If it fits, I’ll be able to sew it.

She pulled the dress over Judith’s head, and they both looked at her in the mirror.  It was just perfectly cut and suited her fine.  The contrast of the orange and her complexion was fantastic and the way the collar was underligned with the mix of pearls and buttons was gorgeous.

-       Ok. My dear.  This is perfect.  Just give me one more day to get it finished and come and fetch it tomorrow around tea-time.  It should be ready by then.  Judith just couldn’t believe how quickly and smoothly it had all gone and didn’t know how to thank Kathleen.  So, she just gave her har largest smile and left.

In the afternoon, Kathleen gathered pins, needles, sewing-machine and spent 3 hours working on the dress.  What if my guardian angel would still be around to help me ?  So, she left the dress on the tabel once more overnight.  There was still a lot of completions and embroidery to do, but, who knows, maybe tomorrow morning will be another one with a surprise ?

Again, up she went to bed, had a good night’s sleep and woke up in the morning feeling good.  She didn’t stop for breakfast, too impatient and dashed in to the workshop.  And there hung the dress, completely finished, looking tremendous ! 

Yes, the Guardian Angel had come once more to help ! It was the first time in Kathleen’s life that such a thing had happened !  How come ?  She couldn’t make out for it, but remembered a story her mother used to tell her when she was a child.  It was called « The Elves and the Shoemaker » .

So maybe helping a tearful woman, giving her priority and just being confident and resilient are the right ingredients for a « little miracle » !

When Judith walked in at tea-time, she was handed over her beautiful orange dress, greeted with a cup of tea and a few scones and made the happiest ever damsel.