Darn It All part 2: even more darned

Ok.
Got to class early, teacher is sitting in the lobby waiting for the other class to finish and get the hell out of our studio.
He says, “Hello! How are you doing with your shoe-sies?”
Yeah, the man said shoe-sies.
See, I think I’ve stumbled upon something important here: apparently the best way to win your elderly, somewhat crotchety, ballet teacher’s heart is to ask him how to darn your shoes.
Try it, Gentle Reader, lemme know if this theory is sound or what.
Anyway, I pull out a shoe.
Verdict is: stitching is good, length and close-together-ness of stitches is good, but the thread is not big enough. It’s double thread, he wants triple. He wants me to braid three strands to make a big fatty-fat thread for the next shoe. I mean, what he really wants is for the thread to have been heavier in the first place, and I’m wondering if he’s thinking of something more like twine, like, maybe cotton cooking twine or something. Like what you’d use to truss a turkey maybe.
But anyway, he’s cool with this shoe like it is, except he points out that I didn’t make it all the way to the edge of the box along one edge and the bottom, which as soon as he pointed it out it was screamingly obvious. Duh.
So my instructions are: shoe one fine as is, shoe two braided triple thread, get right to the edge.
And another cool thing: he points to the elastic bow at the front and says, “when you have this tied correctly, and it feels tight enough, cut the tails shorter than this, so there’s no loop, only tails tuck in. Then,” and he stretched the elastic flat and pointed at the spot where the ribbons attach, “sew through the elastic here. Right through the casing. This way, if the knot comes undone and disappears inside this channel, the elastic will still cup your heel, and all is not lost. You see! These little things we must pass along, person to person, or they are lost forever.”
And then he said, “Books cannot tell you these things!”
Ha! In your face, Books!
And then the other class got the hell out and we went in and got to work, and he stopped at one point to tell us all how people used to sew because there were no cell phones, all the girls would sit around sewing before class instead of doing their phone things.
He said, “Makarova, back when I knew her, would remove her ribbons after every performance and drape them over the back of a chair, then iron them and sew them again. People used to have more respect for their things”
And I asked, “after every performance?” while thinking, ‘holyfuck, did you just say back when you knew Makarova? I’ve, like, read about her!’
And he said, “Yes! Every time. Her shoes that she gave me, you can see the little threads where she snipped off her ribbons. Perhaps I will show them to you. They were her fouetté shoes”
And I said, “whu-Yes! I would love to see them!”
And he said, “She signed them for me, you know just for fun. I have a pair of Maya’s too. The kind of thing that should be displayed, but this is not my studio, aw well, ladies, let’s get back to work…”

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