I don’t think I will ever fully understand the reading public.

When I wrote a column that discussed cloning in a positive way, I expected feedback. After all, it’s a controversial and very emotional Topic. At the very least I expected a nasty email or two, or perhaps an updated version of the 95 theses tacked to my front gate.

There were a few comments, mainly berating me for my bad jokes and sheep shots. But otherwise, I got this image of deserted streets, complete with blowing tumbleweeds and chirping crickets. My thoughts on DNA were DOA.

However, when I wrote a piece on my ambivalence about cooking, I was deluged in comments. I Received several encouraging notes from fellow Betty Crocker addicts — enough, in fact, that we may start a support group. How does Easy Bake Snacking Cake Anonymous sound? We could have a side group to deal with those of us who believe cooking sherry is for recreational purposes. . .

I’ve also been taken aside by several well-meaning local dears who are suddenly very concerned about the state of my marriage — the ability to boil potatoes, apparently, is still the key to happy nuptials in their view. I’ve been drowned in recipes, and even received a subscription card to a bimonthly recipe magazine.

There were a couple of scary notes too, including one that suggested pre-packaged foods were part of a multi-national conspiracy to increase the consumption of monosodium glutamate, which is somehow supposedly related to cocaine addiction. I’m sure Elvis is involved in there somewhere.

At any rate, all of this leads me to conclude that the fastest way to my readers hearts is through their stomachs. Or that a good way to get attention is to trample blithely over domestic issues.

Which is why I couldn’t resist when I received a brochure in the mail this week inviting me to Share in the Excitement of the Creative Sewing and Needlework Festival!

Gently coloured in barf-ola shades of pink and mauve, the 30 page booklet exhorts me to join a three day (!) conference on the fine art of assembling fabrics. Some of the seminar topics had me in, well, stitches.

Consider the intermediate level seminar on Steeking, The description for which asks: Do steeks scare you? This, I presume, is a knitting technique that you would not want to meet in a dark alley. Or how about: Overcome Your Fear of Finishing, which somehow sounds faintly obscene.

But perhaps that seminar is meant to go hand in hand with: Sew The Perfect Bra! or Hot Lingerie Secrets: Panties. I suspect after a half day of things like this you’d need to attend the Control Thy Fabric and Emergency Measures sessions. I was relieved to see that the Bobby the Mohair Bear discussion was not bare, and actually involved teddys, not teddies.

Really folks, I’m not trying to pull the wool over your eyes, or embroider here — these are real topics. So what, you ask? Well, the awful truth is that I won’t be attending this conference. No, the rumours you have heard are not fabricated. In addition to being culinarily challenged, I have to admit that I can’t follow the thread of any conversation involving the sewing arts. My creative talents extend to being able to sew a button on semi-competently.

You see, to me, cross stitch is what happens when you get mad at a loose button. My grandmother once tried to show me how to make lace doilies, but alas, I could not give tit for tatting. I cannot toile over a torn shirt. I am unable to get a bead on embellishing.

So what happens when I need a repair? Well, I don’t hem and haw, I hand it over to a local shopkeeper who is a much better Singer than I. Although somehow I doubt he’d be up for the Making Chic Shapely Chevrons debate, even if it is hosted by master knitter Lily Chin.

No doubt this means I’m resolutely unmarriageable. I’ll be left standing beside the alterations,  although I suppose I can take some consolation in the fact I won’t be called a spinster. But there’s no use needling me about it — as I’ll just take it as license to weave together another sequins of truly awful puns.

Sew there!

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