Sitting in the backseat of my parents’ car, I watched the leafy green tapestries of summer forests flash by and imagined the adventures of the coming week. We arrived in Long Island at my grandparents’ house, and after the weekend, my mother continued back to Boston, leaving me for the week. I was 8 and this was my first trip away from home without my parents. The next morning when I woke up with puffy eyes, my grandmother, Ahu, could tell I was homesick, so she sat me down in front of her sewing machine with quilting cotton and a box of Boston cream donuts. A week later when my parents picked me up, I proudly wore a hilarious pair of neon-green pajama pants that I’d sewn under Ahu’s tutelage. I kept the ill-fitting pants long after I’d outgrown them.
In America, Ahu worked as a seamstress, making the same garment, or pieces of garments, for clothing companies during the rise of ready-to-wear clothing. My grandparents’ lives were utilitarian out of necessity, and Ahu never had the opportunity to sew for leisure. But their hard work and sacrifice laid the foundation for me and my mom to explore creativity when making our clothes.