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My mother used to sew a good part of my wardrobe. She made lovely ruffled granny dresses, elastic-waist pants that were the bane of my existence, and once she even sewed a pair of jeans that were adorned with Wacky Pack pictures from waist to ankle.

But I hated the whole idea. It's not that the clothes themselves were bad; in fact, she did a pretty good job. It was the pins.

Every day that she had a project going, I was forced at least once, sometimes more, to try on whatever was being made for me. Of course fittings are essential to good tailoring, but try telling that to an eight-year-old as she slides her limbs past a multitude of straight pins, terrified that she'll be pricked with the intensity of a penicillin shot. The other bad thing was being called into the house and away from the middle of "Mother May I" games or Chinese jump rope tournaments only to strip and gingerly don whatever was currently in the hopper. I'd stand there while my mother eyed me up and down, checking for even hems and adjusting arm seams. Pins jutted out from between her lips as she ordered me to turn in circles in a terse voice meant to keep the pins from falling out or maybe even inhaled.

My mother was proud of her stitched accomplishments; me, I strongly preferred Sears or the Chubby's section at JCPenney. But the time would always come when the car would end up in the parking lot of the fabric store with us in it, and next thing we knew, my sister and I would be wreaking havoc among the bolts of material while my mother sneered and yelled and tried to find a pattern for the next outfit.

These days I go to the cleaners when I need something altered. The lady sticks about one pin into my hem and a safety pin at that, and I'm on my way. Two days and ten bucks later I've got a pair of pants that fit perfectly and I didn't have to hold my breath in terror of being pricked.

But they never have a little tag in the back that says, "Made especially for you by Mom."