if someone asked me what I did with my time in prison or how I used prison to my benefit I would ask them to look at all the classes that I’ve taken. the type of classes I took tells a lot about the aim that i wanted to achieve in my development as a person. you can tell that I like working with my hands at creating things out of raw material and although they haven’t offered a class towards a particular field I ended up “majoring” in I recently started thinking of taking pictures of the finished products that I produced.
I can sew. not only can I sew but it turns out that I am really good at it. you can even say this prison sentence has been a sort of apprenticeship for me in becoming a Tailor. even though I only use maybe a about three different stitches I can tailor-fit clothes, repair broken hemlines, repair shoes, and even create stuffed animals out of raw materials, all by hand. I even learned how to make my own thread out of the waistband from old boxers.
I first learned this skill in home economics in middle school and left it untouched for many years. and then when I got locked up I met a guy whose shorts needed to be refit because he lost weight and didn’t want to spend money on new clothes. so I found a needle and helped him out. soon after he came back with a few pairs of socks that had holes in them and asked if I could repair them and was willing to pay me the equivalent of $1.50 in stamps for each pair. and then people heard that I could do such things and even more people came to me to repair or patch up worn-out clothes.
Now after al these years, I have developed a skill that has kept me fed and allowed me to even save up a little each week. recently I even started to keep a little in a savings account on my books. I make about 5 dollars per job now and can make up to 50 dollars a week. with no bad habits to waste it on I realize how much I can actually save up over the course of the five years I have left. It’s a lot. so although I don’t have an official record of classes that i’ve taken towards sewing except for a brief stint working for UNICOR I may have a few guys in here who I can list as references. even one who got out and is trying to market a product I made for him. And he can attest I can make just about anything with a needle and thread. I even have his phone number.
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