When did you first get paid for sewing?

When did you first get paid for something sewing related? 

I vividly remember mine...I was 6.  It was the summer between kindergarten and first grade.  My grandmother was a professional seamstress.  She made wedding dresses and Trousseau's .  I got a quarter for each seam I ripped out.  If I cut or otherwise marred the fabric...I did not get paid.  It made me learn very quickly how to rip seams effectively and safely!

To keep that in perspective, at home I made a quarter a WEEK in allowance! (My younger brother made fifteen cents!)  The new house we lived in did not have a finished basement...but the expense to have the builder do it would bring the cost of the newly built house to a price point that my family thought was 'expensive'...it would have topped $9,000!  So my dad finished it himself over time!

I remember a couple years later, our house payment going over $50 a month and my dad complained we needed to find a new house we could afford!  (we didn't)  My mom spent $20.00 a week in groceries...and we ate like kings!

When my husband and I bought our current home 11 years ago, my mom was appalled at the price we paid...saying it wasn't much bigger than the house I grew up in...how could I pay that much?

So, my first sewing job made me RICH!  I had more money than I knew what to do with...and I was hooked on sewing! 

I sometimes think I still work for that wage..... but I don't fell as monetarily rich as I did back then...

Have fun sewing today!


Nini