Is Sewing a Domestic Art?

If you’re of a certain age, you probably remember something in junior high school called home economics. I know I do.

I remember that first “home ec” classroom I walked into my first week in grade seven. While the boys went off to something called “Shop” class to do things I never really understood at the time, we girls marched off into a fantasy world of cooking and sewing. I’m not sure when I had my lightbulb moment, but I do know that within the first few weeks of classes, I was in love with my sewing class. My love of cooking would take decades longer to kick in.

Now, as I look back at those golden days of selecting my first sewing pattern and entering the world of fabric shopping, I realize that some people looking on from the outside may have considered this to be a domestic art. And when I think about domestic arts, I think of housekeeping.

Here are some of the patterns I remember making in the 1970s. I was on a roll then, and none of them said housekeeping to me!

Historically, sewing was a vital skill in many households, primarily handled by women. Men, however, have also practiced sewing in various contexts throughout history. Consider that even contemporary fashion designer Marc Jacobs counts sewing among his essential skills as a haute couture designer.

Sewing encompasses a wide range of activities, including mending clothes, creating garments from scratch as a way to economize, and embellishing fabrics through techniques like embroidery and quilting. It’s these aspects of sewing—mending and sewing to save money—that made sewing one of those housekeeping activities. Sewing to save money in the twenty-first century, though, is something of a myth.

Two years ago, I stumbled upon an article about the magazine Good Housekeeping. It was about its celebration of one hundred years of publication. That got me curious about how far women’s magazines have come or not come since their inception. So, I explored early issues, moved on to the 1960s and 1970s issues when the women’s movement surely must have had an impact and then examined some more current ones. A lot has changed, and yet a lot has stayed the same. Then, I had an idea for a new book.

Enter that gaggingly stupid #tradwife movement that has sprung up online over the past few years. And when I heard about the “stay-at-home girlfriend” meme among the young and underemployed, I was sure there was a book here.

Earlier this year, the newest one was finally published. My heroine, Erica Flanagan, emerged in a very minor role at the end of It All Begins With Goodbye and has now found her new life.

The new book is called Good Housekeeping: My Unexpected Adventures in Domesticity. Here’s what it’s about.

ERICA FLANAGAN, uber-feminist and one of the stars of the afternoon television talk show, has honed her on-air bitch persona to perfection. But Erica is becoming increasingly impatient with the new breed of millennial women who seem to be regressing into homemaker mode. When she finally blows her stack on live television, her boss puts her on a six-month sabbatical. In all her fifty-three years on the planet, workaholic Erica has never had time on her hands. Erica needs a project.

With a burning desire to show all those young, stay-at-home, housewife women a thing or two, Erica embarks on a project to prove to the younger generation of women that they’re wasting their time on meaningless home-based activities—that they need to get a life. And if Erica, who doesn’t have a domestic bone in her body, can do it, she will have won the argument. But she never considered the consequences of the social media backlash.

Between her thirteen-year-old social media-savvy daughter Maddie, a budding filmmaker and the mysterious Betty Crocket, who keeps showing up unannounced, Erica finds herself on a wild domestic adventure and unexpectedly discovers she might not be who she thinks she is.

It’s not about sewing, but it’s got a few of those elements in it, and I’m told it’s funny—even hilarious at some points. You might enjoy it.