from the same mold

The closest I ever came to despising sewing was during my massive cloth diaper project. My husband, sometime after the last piece of velcro was finally attached, said "You could sell these." I'm usually flattered by a comment like that - my handmade item good enough to be sold to the general public? This time, however, I laughed (a bit bitterly, it must be said) and said "Not in a million years."

At some point in the past, sewing, for me, was a frugal way to reproduce the clothing in stores I couldn't afford. This often ended in frustration - my finished product wasn't exactly the same. Only in the past few years have I finally embraced the gap between my creations and the goods offered to me on a rack of gleaming uniformity.

I carved this stamp to make tags for the clothing I create. The result was variable - the ink sometimes a bit heavy on the "S", sometimes too sparse on the spoon handle. But looking at the ribbon of imperfect stamps gave me a thrill that the piles of identical cloth diapers never did.