Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Sew   Listen
verb
Sew  v. i.  (past sewed; past part. sewn; pres. part. sewing)  To practice sewing; to work with needle and thread.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Sew" Quotes from Famous Books



... just as you do now. Women were supposed to be of inferior mental capacity, and it was thought to be a foolish thing to attempt to educate them. 'Better educate the boys,' men said, 'and let the girls learn to cook and sew and to play the piano; that is all that will ever be required of them.' But, in spite of every discouragement, the girls improved their opportunities so well that they were soon taking the prizes away from the boys. Broadminded philanthropists ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan

... which they ate alone and unattended save by the maid Susan, who was old Misery's daughter, the girls walked away to the rose arbor, where Beth declared they could read or sew quite undisturbed. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne

... reappeared with some pieces of bamboo and a square yard of white calico, sat down solemnly in the verandah and began to sew. ...
— Punch, July 18, 1917 • Various

... it. They knew only her law of service and love. They must love each other, whatever happened. There was no quarrelling at meals at Kate's house. Rose must of course oblige her brother, sew on the button, or take his book to the library; Wolf must always protect the girls, and consider them. Wolf firmly believed his sister and cousin to be the sweetest girls in the world; Rose and Norma regarded Wolf as perfection ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris

... Hindoo adoring an idol; he was present, in imagination, at those tragically sorrowful scenes which the wife bore with her tender smile, poor woman, knowing of the life of her Paul only those duties of luxury which she herself imagined, remaining a seamstress still to sew the buttons on the shirts and gloves of her husband, and absolutely ignorant of all the entertainments where, in an evening, would sometimes be lost, at a game of cards, the whole monthly salary of Monsieur Puck! And Zilah said to himself, that this was, perhaps, ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie

... I think you ought to learn to sew, and, moreover, I think this would be an appropriate thing to do. I want you to make a little dress for Totty. I will do the more difficult parts, such as putting it together, but you must run the tucks, and hem it, and overhand the seams. ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells

... we sew ever so many flannel shirts we may be rich by-and-by. I should give mother a new bonnet first of all, for I heard Miss Kent say no lady would wear such a shabby one. Mrs. Smith said fine bonnets didn't make real ladies. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... conceals so much. Now, I take it the Cresswells would object to instructing them in French and in dinner etiquette and tea-gowns, and so, in fact, would I; but teach them how to handle a hoe and to sew and cook. I have reason to know that people like the Cresswells would ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... man. I don't care how roughly they are made, nor how badly sewn, but they must be cut to this pattern. Get as many men as you require to sew, and begin work at once. I'll send this boy to you soon, for you to get ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn

... Name do I answer yes — Word beautiful and true. By this I'll sew the bridal dress I ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... in picture books. All that Lord Lane will have to say is, 'Let there be mules,' and there will be mules—strings of them. He will only have to pick and choose. The thing will be to get a good one, and a nice, handsome, troubadour-sort of man who can cook, and jodel, and sew, and put up tents, and keep off murderers in mountain passes at night. It may take a day or two to find exactly ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... and taught you Greek, Instead of teaching you to sew! Pray, why did not your father make A saddler, ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... was all abroad. Within the house she made more dirt than she had the inclination or the ability to clear away. She could neither read, nor knit, nor sew; and although she called herself a Protestant, and a Church of England woman, she knew no more of religion, as revealed to man through the Word of God, than the savage who sinks to the grave in ignorance of a Redeemer. Hence she stoutly ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... miserable person. sale, the act of selling. rode, did ride. seen, beheld. road, a way; route. scene, a view. rowed, did row. seine, a net for fishing. room, an apartment. slay, to kill. rheum, a serous fluid. sleigh, a vehicle on runners. sow, to scatter seed. sley, a weaver's reed. sew (so), to use a needle. seem, to appear. so, thus; in like manner. seam, a line ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey

... aye in silk or satin, Flaunting like a modern belle; Her robe and plaid 's the simple tartan, Sweet and modest like hersel'. The shapely robe adorns her person That her eident hand wad sew; The plaid sae graceful flung around her, 'Twas her ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... had a quilting at the house of the two sisters that day. Six or seven women of the neighborhood, of middle age or older, had been in to sew on the glaring, varicolored square. All day long they had thrust their needles up and down and gossiped in their slow, insinuating way, pausing only at noon to move their chairs to the dinner-table, where they sat with the same set curves ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben

... said he, after a thoughtful pause, and in a tone of considerable compassion, "I understand: you sew your money in your mattress. My poor, poor lad, you can do better than that! ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... doting mother came, And soothed her daughter then; "Grieve not, my darling, I will sew Your dolly ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field

... easy to be hard upon the poor girls, but consider their training. Many of them cannot read or write; how many even can sew well? The cottage girl is always a poor hand at her needle, and has to be taught by the elder servants when she first goes into her place. Accustomed from childhood to what would be considered abominable indecency in a higher class of life; constantly ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies

... was finished the Dwarfs said, "Will you look after our household—be our cook, make the beds, wash, sew, and knit for us, and keep everything in neat order? If so, we will keep you here, and ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall

... to swim; Work—work—work Till the eyes are heavy and dim I Seam, and gusset, and band, Band, and gusset, and seam, Till over the buttons I fall asleep, And sew them on in ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... Burr went on, "she used a little bone to push the thread through the skins. One day she found a little bone with a hole in it and took it home. She put her thread through the hole, wondering how it would do, and began to sew. Soon there was a crowd of women round her, pointing and saying, 'Oh, oh!' while the ...
— The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone • Margaret A. McIntyre

... write, but the younger Moore children tried to teach her to spell, read, and write. When she used to stand around Mrs. Moore when she was sewing she appeared to be interested and so she was taught to sew. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... nice man," explained Tess. "He lives in Graves' old place on the hill, an' he learns me new things out of books every day.... His sister's teachin' me to sew, too. I told ye she air goin' ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... enough already. Let's see; how long have I been a-wearin' of that shirt; oh, I remember, I bought it jist two days afore Five Bob was pupped. I can't afford a new shirt jist yet; howsomenever, seein' it's Brummy, I'll jist borrow a couple more strips and sew 'em on agen when I ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... have some land," said Christine; that was the promise, and we thought to raise vegetables and fruits; fowls, too, and perhaps bees; but we can cook, wash the clothes, keep the house clean, spin, and weave, and sew." ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley

... the nursery, the mother improved the favored season, in teaching her little girl to read, to sew and spell; keeping up at the same time her regular routine of instruction in catechism, hymns, &c. She had an exercise for the Sabbath which was admirably adapted to make the day pass, not only pleasantly but profitably. In the morning, unless ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... did not allow her to weep long. She had now to sit all day in the corner of a room to sew. She was expected to do everything well from the first; and if she did not, she was kept without food or cruelly punished. Morning and evening she had to help Mdlle. Dufour to dress and undress her mistress. But Constantia, although she looked with hauteur on everybody ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various

... some to the third stories, in an inverse proportion to the number of dollars paid, and ensconce themselves in their respective chambers. As to what they do there it is not very easy to say, but I believe they clear-starch a little, and iron a little, and sit in a rocking-chair, and sew a great deal. I always observed that the ladies who boarded, wore more elaborately worked collars and petticoats than any one else. The plough is hardly a more blessed instrument in America than the needle. How could they live without it? But time ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope

... bridegroom at the altar or before the mayor putting on their already heavy-ruffled garments the sacred ruffle of law or religion; the babe brought to church by his mother and kindred to have the priest-tailor sew on his new garment the ruffle of baptism; the soldier in his gaudy uniform; the king in his ermine with a crown and sceptre appended; the Nabob of Ind in his gorgeous and multi-colored robes; and the Papuan with horns in his nostrils and rings ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... the children and give them rides on her famous wooden steed; or she would stop in a forest to speak to a charcoal burner and ask if he was happy or desired anything to make him more content; or she would teach young girls how to sew and plan pretty dresses, or enter the shops where the jewelers and craftsmen were busy and watch them at their work, giving to each and all a cheering ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... wake of luxury and debauchery. Effemination makes its appearance early in life. The young boy likes the society of girls; he plays with dolls, and, if permitted, will don female attire and dress his hair like a girl. He learns to sew, to knit, to embroider, to do "tatting." He becomes a connoisseur in female dress, and likes to discuss matters pertaining to the toilet of females. He does not care for boyish sports, and when he grows older, takes no pleasure in the amusements and pursuits of ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir

... great interest in making herself useful in every possible way, and displayed in her household avocations, and in all her other duties, a sort of womanly energy which was quite remarkable in one of her years. She learned to knit, to spin, and to sew, and she assisted the minister's wife very much in these and similar occupations. She had learned to read in her native tongue at the clerk's school, but now she conceived the idea of learning the German ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott

... you see that it is impossible for us to employ your husband. Isn't there something I can do for you yourself, though? Mrs. Greymer tells me you sew ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... dish of gossip at the little house, or inviting 'that poor dear' to come in and spend the day at the big house. It was pleasant, for in dull weather Meg often felt lonely. All were busy at home, John absent till night, and nothing to do but sew, or read, or potter about. So it naturally fell out that Meg got into the way of gadding and gossiping with her friend. Seeing Sallie's pretty things made her long for such, and pity herself because she had not got them. Sallie was very kind, and often offered her ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... in the hen-yard scattering corn among the eager little chickens. In the evening Barbara often saw her sitting in the summer-house over which sweet honeysuckle crept, and there, with a clean three-legged pine table before her upon which to lay her work, Susan would sew busily. Her seams were even and neat, for Mrs. Price had taught her daughter that what is worth doing ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... least idea," said Eloise, coming in and sitting down. "I've thought all night. I can't do anything. I can't teach; I can't sew; I can't play. I can ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... Lydia lighted the fire, and as Leonard had made his escape, Belle brought up a supplementary hodful of coal. Martie lighted two of the four gas jets, and settled down to solitaire. Sally read "Idylls of the King." Lydia and her mother began to sew, the older woman busy with mending a hopelessly worn table-cloth, the younger one embroidering heavy linen with hundreds of knots. Lydia had been making a parasol top for more than a year. They gossiped in low, absorbed tones of the affairs of friends and ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris

... thinking the matter over, and it occurs to me that I have an old pair of dress trousers that might serve your turn; that is to say, if you could manage to unpick the red stripe off your old ones and get someone to sew it on. They are black, to be sure; but the difference between black and dark blue is not so very noticeable. And the cut of them inclines to the peg-top, that being the fashionable shape when I bought them—let me see—in fifty-seven, I think ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... mother of his child—of his happy little home of other days. Two articles, totally useless to Sam; the scissors could only be of service to a woman—the book to a lettered person. Sam could neither sew ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various

... altogether, and a tablespoonful of butter substituted in the stuffing. Basting should be done as often as once in ten minutes, else the skin will blister and crack. Where the fish is large, it will be better to sew the body together after stuffing, rather than to use a skewer. The string can be cut and ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell

... scenery. It cannot exist unless it follow through the valley of a stream. The movement is so easy that, with your eyes shut, you do not know you move. The route is so direct, that when you are once shielded from the sun, you are safe for hours. You draw, you read, you write, or you sew, crochet, or knit. You play on your flute or your guitar, without one hint of inconvenience. At a "low bridge" you duck your head lest you lose your hat,—and that reminder teaches you that you are human. You are glad to know this, and you ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale

... knitting, and the like, are arts which have never been practised in the Indian tribes generally. After the revolutionary war, I learned to sew, so that I could make my own clothing after a poor fashion; but the other domestic arts I have been wholly ignorant of the application of, since my captivity. In the season of hunting, it was our business, in addition to our cooking, to bring home the game that was taken ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver

... illustrations all my fancy painted. But the particular flower of the flock to whom I have hopelessly lost my heart is Tibby Birse. I must have known Tibby Birse when she was a servant's mantua-maker in Edinburgh and answered to the name of Miss Broddie. She used to come and sew with my nurse, sitting with her legs crossed in a masculine manner; and swinging her foot emphatically, she used to pour forth a perfectly unbroken stream of gossip. I didn't hear it, I was immersed in far more important business with a box of bricks, but the recollection of that ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... I sew). The line of junction of two parts which are immovably connected together. Applied to the line where the whorls of a univalve shell join one another; also to the lines made upon the exterior of the shell of a chambered Cephalopod by the margins ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson

... growing increasingly calm and less beset with doubts. For the first time, with Dick's coming to live with them ten years before, a boy of twenty-two, she had found a vicarious maternity and gloried in it. Recently she had been very happy. The war was over and he was safely back; again she could sew on his buttons and darn his socks, and turn down his bed at night. He filled the old house with cheer and with vitality. And, as David gave up more and more of the work, he took it on his broad shoulders, efficient, ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... balm for his dignity. His father assured him that not only would the breaking of arrest be condoned, but that the good-conduct badge would be restored as soon as his mother could sew it on his blouse-sleeve. Miss Allardyce had told the Colonel a story that made him ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... had said, "take this, and sew it on the head, so Minnie'll have something she can hold, at least." And she had wrapped a pink cambric, sawdust-stuffed body in with ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... I. "If I'm ever brought home on a shutter, I shall look for Cornelia to be waitin' on the mat with a needle and thread, ready to sew mournin' bands on ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... honor, hasn't she all her own friends of her own sex to keep watch that she does not go astray, and to tear her to pieces if she is found erring? When our Mahmouds or Selims of Baker-street or Belgrave-square visit their Fatimas with condign punishment, their mothers sew up Fatima's sack for her, and her sisters and sisters-in-law see her well under water. And this present writer does not say nay. He protests most solemnly he is a Turk, too. He wears a turban and a beard like another, and is all for the sack practice, Bismillah! But O you spotless, who have the ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... that she used to do at Middlemount, as nearly as she could; to make the days of waiting pass more quickly, she tried to serve herself in ways that scandalized the proud affection of Maddalena. It was not fit for the signorina to make her bed or sweep her room; she might sew and knit if she would; but these other things were for servants like herself. She continued in the faith of Clementina's gentility, and saw her always as she had seen her first in the brief hour of her social splendor in Florence. Clementina tried to make her understand how she lived at Middlemount, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... when the garment makers themselves in this way finally succeeded in organizing six hundred of the Italian women in our immediate vicinity, who had finished garments at home for the most wretched and precarious wages. To be sure, the most ignorant women only knew that "you couldn't get clothes to sew" from the places where they paid the best, unless "you had a card," but through the veins of most of them there pulsed the quickened blood of a new fellowship, a sense of comfort and aid which had been laid out ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... as far as it can, by its legislative enactments or its own social code, the labors which women are to perform to the narrowest possible compass. A woman may work, but she must do nothing which is called unfeminine. She may get up linen, ply her needle, keep weaving-machines in motion, knit, sew, and in higher spheres in life teach music, French, and English grammar. She may be a governess, or a sempstress, or even within certain limits may enter the literary market and write books. This is the extreme boundary of her liberty, and somewhere ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous

... threatened to overflow. "Oh, Fairy Godmother, how lovely it would be. But I can't go. I must stay here and sew and try to make up for lost time. Besides, father would miss ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed

... district, where she had always led her classes, but had spent two winters in a State Normal School. She was a trim body, compactly built, had black hair and eyes, and a fresh, rosy complexion that is so characteristic of her class. She could ride a fractious horse, milk, sew, knit and cook, and had followed the plow more than one day; while during harvest and corn-husking she had many a time "made a hand." From this cause she was strong and well knit in all her frame, a perfect picture of young womanly health ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith

... thy woman, Negore's woman, the brave man's woman. And thou shalt hunt meat for me and Old Kinoos, and I shall cook thy food, and sew thee warm parkas and strong, and make thee moccasins after the way of my people, which is a better way than thy people's way. And as I say, I shall be thy woman, Negore, always thy woman. And I shall ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London

... you have selvages, join them together and sew them firmly. If you have raw edges, turn down one of the edges once, and the other double the breadth, and then turn half of it back again. This is for the fell. The two pieces are pinned face to face, and seamed together; ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous

... you Larry! saddle the grey. Don't you cut the pup's ears till I come home! and if Mr. Ferguson sends over for the draft of the lease, tell him it won't be ready till to-morrow. Molly! Molly! where are you, you old divil? Sew on that button for me—I forgot to tell you yesterday—make haste! I won't delay you a moment, Dick. Stop a minute, though. I say, Lanty Houligan—mind, on your peril, you old vagabone, don't let them fight that badger without me. Now, Dick, I'll be with you in the twinkling of a bedpost, ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... exclaimed, "What a fright I look!" as she seated herself by the table, and threw off her furs. "Don't hurry, please. Let me stay and watch. What are you doing? Mending a blouse? How clever of you to be able to use your fingers as well as your brains! I never sew, except stupid fancy-work for bazaars. So this is your room! You told me about the walls. Can you imagine any one in cold blood choosing such a paper? But it looks cosy all the same. I do like little rooms with everything carefully in reach. They ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... to help you with your new flag if I am able. Will you kindly send the old one and the stuff down by my brother, who is coming to see me on Saturday. He is working at Rotten Gully, and his name is Ned. I do not know if I sew well enough to please you, but ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... old proverb which says, "For a good glove, Spain must dress the leather, France must cut it, and England must sew it." Many pairs of most excellent gloves have never seen any one of these countries, but the moral of the proverb remains, namely, that it takes considerable work and care to make ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan

... mildest, most conservative of ladies, whose only exception to her universal preference for old things is her son; my boy, a piece of love and sunshine, well worth my watching from morning to night;—these, and three domestic women, who cook and sew and run for us, make all my household. Here I sit and read and write, with very little system, and, as far as regards composition, with the most fragmentary result: paragraphs incompressible, each sentence an infinitely ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... cared nothing about them. They just bored me. They are extremely religious. We had prayers night and morning, and a prayer before and after every meal. They read only very good books, and the Honorable Misses Stanhope sew for the poor old women and teach the poor young ones. They work harder than anyone I ever knew, and they call it 'improving the time.' They thought me a very silly, reckless young woman, and I think they all prayed for me. One night after they had sung some very nice songs ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr

... in the city," she cried. "They've taken my father to defend the breastworks and he's near seventy. If you can sew or wash or cook, there'll be work enough for you, ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow

... she, "you must make haste, and sew the parts of this body together, and when you have done, I will give ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan

... this alone. She labored with her hands and contributed of her money to advance the glory of God. Impressed with the importance of missions, she formed a society among her young associates to sew and knit for the purpose of providing clothing for the families who were abroad. For this circle of children, which convened from time to time, she prepared work and furnished employment until a box was ready, and, under the direction of older friends, sent to a missionary who was laboring ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy

... think, sir," Stephen said, "that if we could get some strong fibre, or some of those thin climbers that barred our way—they were not thicker than string, but there was no breaking them, and I should think that they would do—that with them we could sew the planks together and caulk them afterwards with the threads from a bit of the leg of one ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty

... Make a little bag of cheesecloth and put a cupful of ordinary bran in it and sew or tie the top. Let this bag soak in the bath, squeezing it ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall

... was once an emperor, very fond of new clothes. And to him came two tailors, who promised to make him some extraordinary clothes. The emperor engages them and they begin to sew at them, but they explain that the clothes have the extraordinary property of remaining invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position. The courtiers come to look at the tailors' work and see nothing, for the men are plying ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... returned the guest, much gratified; "but I can't lend you the papers, cause there's five waitin' after the postmaster's wife, and goodness knows how many of them has promised others. I don't mind runnin' over once in a while, though, and tellin' you about 'em while I sew. ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed

... deftly fashion the frames of kayak and oomiak, using in their construction not a single nail or piece of iron, but fastening the wood together by pegs and thongs of skin. Then the women come on the scene, measure the frame, and sew green hides of the proper shape to fit, making wonderful overlapping seams that are absolutely watertight. As it is necessary to put the skin covering on while the hides are raw, the whole job has to be completed ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... of advice, and fed visitors on the produce of her garden, "but no man knows comfort till he marries. It's a chop one day and a steak the next all the year round—nothing tasty or appetising; and as for his shirts, most bachelors have to sew on their own buttons. Ah, you all pretend to be comfortable, but I know better, for Mr. MacGuffie has often told me ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... pluck a chick, and roll pastry, and use a bedstaff, and scour a floor, and sew, and the like. She hath not ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... Curly Locks! wilt thou be mine? Thou shalt not wash the dishes, nor yet feed the swine— But sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam, And feast upon strawberries, sugar ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye

... There comes a time in every man's life when he feels lonesome—when it looks good to him to have someone round all the time, looking after things—his dinner, his clothes, and so on. Why, sometimes I go around for weeks with my suspenders only half fastened, just because I've got no one to sew a button on. It gets on a feller's nerves—yes, it does—until at last he says to himself: 'Jimmie, my boy, you've knocked about alone long enough. You want to hitch up with some girl and take it easy a bit.'" He stopped a moment to gauge the effect of his words, ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow

... the good woman, "I'll tell you what it is, Miss Patsey, I've been a thinking over the matter a deal for the last week, and I've been a-trying my appetite, and a-trying my eyes, and a-trying how I could walk about, and work, and sew, and I just tell you what it ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton

... can come to my home with me," she said. "You can sew for me, and Rose can go to school and also help around the house. I will give you five dollars ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.

... (1) Norn, one of the Fates, stands here for women, whose business it was to sew the rings of iron upon the cloth which made these ring-mail coats or shirts. The needles, although some of them were of gold, appear to have been without eyes, and used ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... you? Peace, you know better. You know you never sew a stitch but you lie awake half the night after it with ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... sufficiently restored to sew again. Then came the old resolution to take care of herself, to cast off the unpleasant chari- ties of ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson

... clothes an' all o' de slaves clothes wuz all made on de plantation. De marster's wife could sew an' she an' her mother an' some of de slaves done all o' de spinning an' weaving on de place. I've worked many a day in de house where dey made de cloth at. To color de clothes dey made dyes out o' all kinds o' barks. If ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... Labakan was unhandy with the needle; on the contrary, he could make excellent work: moreover, one would have done him injustice to have called him lazy. Nevertheless, his companions knew not what to make of him, for he would often sew for hours together so rapidly that the needle would glow in his hand, and the thread smoke, and that none could equal him. At another time, however, (and this, alas! happened more frequently,) he would sit in deep meditation, looking with his staring eyes straight before him, and with a countenance ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff

... philosophy from Antinomianism; my mother, whitest, mildest, most conservative of ladies, whose only exception to her universal preference for old things is her son; my boy, a piece of love and sunshine, well worth my watching from morning to night;—these, and three domestic women, who cook, and sew and run for us, make all my household. Here I sit and read and write, with very little system, and, as far as regards composition, with the most fragmentary result: paragraphs incompressible, each ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... on the land—to cut, to fashion, and to sew. Perhaps, too, your talent at a masquerade dress may be taxed, from ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... tepee through the opening over the fireplace, roused The Stone to her day's work. She lost no time in setting a task for her little slave. Handing her a needle carved from the bone of a deer and thread made of a deer's sinew, she hade her sew up a rent in the skin curtain ...
— Timid Hare • Mary Hazelton Wade

... architecture—and secretly a little disturbed, suspecting what lay behind it. But as autumn drew on he read more and more of the books she kept putting in his way. While he read she would sit with a novel or sew. She would glance up with some remark, and they would talk and then read on. Subtly she made the atmosphere. She often brought Paris into their talks. She spoke longingly of the shops and plays, and all she wanted to see over there. And she almost succeeded in making him promise ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole

... sew them together, and make a curtain to hang from the edge of the roof to the ground. I tell you it is going to be mighty cold here, and besides, it will keep ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... country. He might just as well have said she must go to Europe, for Mrs. Holmes had no dear old home in the country waiting to welcome her; no uncles, aunts and cousins, writing "When will you come?" So she sat through the long afternoon and tried to sew as well as she could with the heat, and the flies, ...
— Sunshine Factory • Pansy

... evenly and as small as possible," and Mrs. Freeman handed Anne the strips of dimity. "But about your thimble, Anne," she continued. "I shall be better pleased if some time, when you perhaps have a thimble of silver, or have outgrown this one, you will give it to some other child who is learning to sew and has no thimble. We mustn't plan to keep gifts always, even if we do prize them. Sometimes it is best to pass ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis

... gentlemen," he said, "but she's the best nigger for work Mistah Benbow had." He seized her arm and squeezed it, while the girl flinched and drew back. "She's solid, gentlemen, and sound as a dollar, and she kin sew and cook. Twenty-two years old. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... far from warlike, he could not bring himself, in view of his secret plans, to part with his only weapon. He examined his extra pair of khaki trousers, and discovering a considerable surplus of cloth at each inside seam, he took needle and thread and managed to sew the gun in so that it hung close against the inside of his right leg when he donned the garment. It felt queer and uncomfortable, but it did not appear to be noticeable so long as he stood upright. With some pride in his stratagem, he ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... one or two places," pursued Gila's ready tongue, "but it's easily mended. I wore it to a dance and somebody stepped on the hem. I suppose you are good at mending. A girl in your position ought to know how to sew. My maid usually mends things like this with a thread of itself. You can pull one out along the hem, I should think. Then here is a pink satin. It needs cleaning. They don't charge more than two or three dollars—or perhaps you might use gasolene. I had ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... to wish for anybody, but learned to put on my clothes and tie my strings and button, and do what Aunt Lois told me. I can wipe cups and saucers and make my bed and sweep my room and weed in the garden, and sew, and spin a little, but I cannot make very even thread yet. And to knit—I have knit a pair of stockings, Patty. Aunt Lois said those I brought ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... look at, so that you will more easily arrive at the proportions of the body. The right foot of the horse must be raised. After you have satisfied yourself in regard to the form of the animal, take cheap cotton cloth and sew over all parts of his body. Cover this with three coats of white paint, and sprinkle slightly with black. The eyes can be imitated by using the bottom of a small black glass bottle; the ears should be made ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head

... resort in summer when not actually engaged in household work. It was now lightly roofed over with boards and tarpaulin against the winter rain, but still afforded her a veranda-like space before the gallery door, where she could read or sew, looking over the bow of the Pontiac to the tossing bay or the further range of the ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte

... spared to attend to the planting in early spring. What if the house is left a little disordered while one works in the garden? It can be put to rights after the precious roots and seeds have been placed under ground to begin their work of beauty. We must all sew I suppose, but let us wear the last year shirt waists awhile, and take the time to plant flowers in the garden or window boxes, to cheer us when we are compelled to run the machine. By leaving off some ...
— The Mayflower, January, 1905 • Various

... Dick," Sheila said; "he asked me to grow up and marry him some day. He said I should sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam, and feast upon strawberries, sugar ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley

... to sew for—" began the seamstress despairingly, but Miss Abigail would not listen, bundling her out of the garden gate and sending her trotting home, cheered unreasonably by the old woman's jovial blustering, "No such kind of talk allowed in ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... themselves, and slash about with their long heavy knives, inflicting ugly gashes and often maiming each other for life. One-armed men are not uncommon; and I knew of two cases where an arm was chopped off in these encounters. Nearly every pay-week our medical officer was sent for to sew up the wounds that had been received. Fortunately even at these times they do not interfere with foreigners, their quarrels being amongst themselves, and either faction fights or about their women, or gambling losses. Many of the worst cases of ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt

... aspect, "he sew the abomination up in a sack and cast her into the sea, then peradventure he may yet find place ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... Abbot? There will be no more fighting for months now; McClellan has let them slip. You could have a fortnight in Boston as well as not, and wear your captain's bars for the first time. I fancy I know how proud Miss Winthrop would be to sew ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King

... husbands; she would have children; and her sweetness, her sensitiveness would stiffen under the impact of life to a serviceable toughness. But meanwhile what could she do—poor little Ariadne!—but 'live and be lovely'—sew and knit, and gather sphagnum moss—dreaming half her time, and no doubt crying half the night. What dark circles already round the beautiful eyes! And how transparent were the girl's delicate hands! Miss Martin felt that she was watching a creature on whom love had ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... man, very poor. His father, mother, all his relations, had gone to the Sand Hills. He had no lodge, no wife to tan his robes or sew his moccasins. He stopped in one lodge to-day, and to-morrow he ate and slept in another; thus he lived. He was a good-looking young man, except that on his cheek he had a scar, and his clothes were always ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell

... also provide for each horse a pair of strong hobbles. Take them to a harness-maker and have him sew inside each ankle-band a broad strip of soft wash-leather twice the width of the band. This will save much chafing. Some advocate sheepskin with the wool on, but this I have found tends to soak up water or to freeze hard. At least two loud cow-bells ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... and hot.—If the liver is to be roasted, first wash and wipe it, then cut a long hole in it, and stuff it with crumbs of bread, chopped anchovy, herbs, fat bacon, onion, salt, pepper, a bit of butter, and an egg. Sew up the liver, lard or wrap it in a veal caul, and put it to the fire. Serve it with good brown gravy, and currant jelly.—If the liver and lights are to be dressed together, half boil an equal quantity of each; then cut them in a middling-sized mince, add a spoonful or two of the water that boiled ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... to free her brothers even if it should cost her her life. She left the hut, went into the forest, climbed a tree, and spent the night there. The next morning she went out, collected star-flowers, and began to sew. She could speak to no one, and she had no wish to laugh, so she sat there, looking only ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various

... of the wounded men, and we had to keep constantly baling with our hats, or whatever we could lay hold of. As it became necessary to lighten the boat as much as possible, the captain ordered us to sew the body of poor Seton up in his blanket, and to heave it overboard. No one present was able to read the burial service over him, and he who had so lately performed that office for his shipmates was committed to the deep without a prayer being said over him. I thought it at the ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston

... mother were engaged in making up a quantity of dresses out of the materials they had purchased in New York; and Matilda was set to run up breadths of skirts, till she could do that thoroughly; then she was made to cover cord, by the scores of yards, and to hem ruffles, and to gather them, and to sew on bindings, and then to sew on hooks and eyes; and then to make button-holes. The child's whole morning now was spent in the needle part of mantua-making. After dinner came arithmetic, and French exercises, and reading history; and the evening ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner

... her sisters learned to sew well. Louisa set up as a doll's dress-maker. She was then twelve years old. She hung out a little sign. She put some pretty dresses in the window to show ...
— Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans • Edward Eggleston

... a little, thus making the outside edge slightly rounded. If this is done, the corners will not stick out when the cloth is finished. After the cloth is carefully folded, pressed, and dried, take a needle and thread and sew the open corners about 1/2 inch in from the edge of the cloth. By carefully studying the cut, one can readily see each operation and, by following directions, make a ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble

... private, personal matther," he declared. "'Twas settled satisfacthory. I'll not die, an' I'll talk to no man but Misther Daney. Sew me up an' plug me lung, an' be quick about ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... three sharp edges, and heavy waxed thread, or better yet, with catgut, sew up the longer sides of the skin with a simple overcast stitch. Let the hair side be in while sewing. In the smaller end sew the circular bottom. Invert the quiver on a stick; turn back a cuff of hide one inch deep at the top. To do this nicely, the hair should be clipped ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... rode ore blew awl thyme new ate lief cell dew sell won praise high prays hie be inn ail road rowed by blue tier so all two time knew ate leaf one due sew tear buy lone hare night clime sight tolled site knights maid cede beech waste bred piece sum plum e'er cent son weight tier rein weigh heart wood paws through fur fare main pare beech meet wrest led bow seen ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody

... all this? A millinery store? You and Katy and Gertie, I suppose. Well, I don't know but that would be a nice way to help teach you to sew. You must comb your hair again and put on a clean white apron before you go downtown—and don't go anywhere but Mrs. Smith's. By the way, ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... find the thinnest Swiss muslin best. Get a piece of iron wire, not as heavy as telegraph wire, bend it in a circle of about ten inches diameter, with the ends projecting from the circle two or three inches; lash this net frame to the end of a light stick four or five feet long. Sew the net on the wire. The net must be a bag whose depth is not quite the length of your arm—so deep that when you hold the wire in one hand you can easily reach the bottom with the bottle (to be described) in the other hand. Never touch wing ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various

... and living, the lines that outwardly mark its inward structure; in short, it makes us regard its matter as indifferent to its form. The whole of matter is made to appear to our thought as an immense piece of cloth in which we can cut out what we will and sew it together again as we please. Let us note, in passing, that it is this power that we affirm when we say that there is a space, that is to say, a homogeneous and empty medium, infinite and infinitely divisible, lending itself indifferently to any mode of decomposition ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson

... the girls say. You see, my sister Ella hasn't got much to do at home, and don't read anything, or sew, or play solitaire, you see; and she hears about pretty much everything that goes on, you see. Well, Ella says a lot of the girls have been talking about Mildred and this Arthur Russell for quite a while back, you see. They were all wondering what he was going to look like, you see; because ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington

... wages, for, although her position was apparently one of much greater importance and consideration than Justine's, she was really at the beck and call of a girl who, while she called her "darling," gave her orders and paid her for her services. Very often Miss Nora asked her to sew, on the plea that she was as skilful with her fingers as a fairy, but in reality that her employer might feel the superiority ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)

... the workwomen of England, it is impossible to agree with him. It is most assuredly not the case in thousands of instances that "there are no good workwomen out of work, or earning low wages," nor that "those who cannot get good wages are women who have spent their prime in idleness ... and sew badly." ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... Thayne came, her face expressing a calm she did not feel. "Mr. Fisher thinks there is no cause for us to worry," she remarked placidly. "He is going to take what he calls a 'turn about the town.' Frances, suppose you go on reading to Win while I sew a little." ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown

... very tired now and I think she has been worried all the time lest something should go wrong with this nice offer. You see sewing is not very profitable ordinarily unless you can do high up dressmaking or are forewoman in some factory, and I couldn't sew for a living. It is one thing over and over. You are never learning anything new, broadening out, enjoying the wisdom of the master minds, the beautiful poetry, the grand philosophies. Oh, am I a very romantic ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... looking out some materials for needlework for you," said Miss Davis. "It is quite time you learned to sew; I hope you will find amusement in the occupation. However, if you are tired you may go to bed. As a rule the girls do not go to ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland

... horses are looked after, fed, groomed, and harnessed for him. This saves time, and enables the crop to be taken off the more quickly. Of course, the farmer in a small way will do his own work, requiring only a little assistance at harvest time, someone to sew up and stack the bags. As there is always a rush at harvest time, the bags of grain are often left lying in the paddocks in small heaps until the crop is all off, when they are carted to the railway ...
— Wheat Growing in Australia • Australia Department of External Affairs

... neither teach, nor paint, nor enter upon a profession, nor engage in any paid work. Polished after the similitude of a palace, what should the daughters do except stay at home to cheer father and mother, play and sing in the twilight, read, shop, sew, visit, receive their friends, and be young women of elegant leisure? If love, and love's climax, the wedding march, follow soon upon a girl's leaving school, she is taken out of the ranks of girlhood, and in accepting woman's highest ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... held services and great crowds came to hear her. She cut out clothes for the people and taught the women how to sew. She gave medicine to the sick and bandaged the wounds of those ...
— White Queen of the Cannibals: The Story of Mary Slessor • A. J. Bueltmann

... she; 'can you sew? I am sure if you can I shall be very glad of your help, for my girls never put in a stitch, even for themselves, except it is some finery for Sundays, and then they do it because I can't do it well enough for them. There, my girl, if you can mend me those stockings you'll do me a service. They ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas



Words linked to "Sew" :   tick, sewing, backstitch, stitch, run up, fell, overcast, hemstitch, fashion, conjoin, cast on, quilt, fasten, tuck, pucker, secure, tailor-make, hem, baste, gather, cast off



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com