“Nope,” he said with a sheepish grin. He was trying his best not to look over his shoulder at the phone.
“Me neither.”
Both father’s and daughter’s eyes bugged out, and I waited as long as I could stand it before saying, “Just kidding. Besides, this is more of a sewing hack.”
I might not know how to sew, but I had gone as far as to sign up for a class at JOANN with Rachel and Abi. As a result, I had some neat accessories, including one of those little bracelets with the pincushion. I handed it over to Parker and was amused by how far he had to stretch the plastic to get it over his wrist.
“Is this absolutely necessary?” he asked.
“No, but it’s fun. First step: figure out how long the skirt needs to be.”
Since Cassidy didn’t have any specifics, we had to make an educated guess. I showed Parker how to place a few pins around the skirt to use as guidelines later. The dress hung way past her bubblegum-pink toenails. It looked as though we would need to cut off almost six inches of material, and then we’d still have about four inches to fold under.
“Why not just cut it off and call it a day?” Parker asked.
“Dad!” Cassidy exclaimed at the same time I said, “Because then the ends would fray. Also, it’s a good idea to have extra material so you can let the skirt down if Cassidy grows before the next concert.”
“Sure. Let the skirt down,” he said, even though his tone betrayed that he didn’t really know what I was talking about. “Now what?”
“Now Cassidy is going to take off that dress, and the fun will begin!”
She gathered her skirt and jumped down from the chair. He looked at my phone with a lopsided grin and said, “Her idea of fun and my idea of fun are two very different things.”
A natural! His little aside would be so cute when I started editing.
“Be careful taking that off, and don’t scratch yourself with the straight pins!” I yelled after Cassidy.
I handed Parker the world’s tiniest metal measuring stick, one that had come with my sewing kit.
“What the heck is this?”
“A tiny ruler.”
“I can see that, but what is it for?”
“Well, you’re going to double-check the placement of the pins and make sure everything is even using that, and”—I reached into my bag and brought out a piece of tailor’s chalk—“you’ll mark the fabric with this.”
“This seems a little complicated.”
“Welcome to womanhood,” I said. “Why make things easy when you can make them complicated?”
“I’m going to plead the Fifth.” His tone was dry, but his eyes danced.
Cassidy emerged from the bathroom and handed me her dress. “Is it okay if I go finish my Spanish homework now?”
“Sí,” I said at the same time Parker said, “Oui.”
“Spanish, Dad.” She rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t quite keep the smile off her face.
“Ready?” I asked as I held out the dress to Parker.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
I showed him how to measure the material, then use the tailor’s chalk to create a second guideline. Once we’d measured everything—twice—it was time to bring over the ironing board and place the tape.
Once he got the hang of placing the tape, then holding the iron over that spot to melt it and make the two pieces of fabric adhere to each other, he settled into a rhythm and could converse. “So, why do you make videos like this?”
“Oh,” I said, surprised because even my husband didn’t care one whit what I was up to. When I told him I’d started a YouTube channel,he hadn’t even looked up from his phone but mechanically said, “That’s nice.”
