Sewing mishaps happen to us all. Some are big and some are small (Hey, this is starting to sound like a poem. I promise I won’t write in rhyme for the whole post!)
In fact I had a small mishap just today. I was cutting out some pieces for my cube doorstop which I will be stocking at the Handmade Market in September. For these square pieces I tend to just measure them up on my cutting mat rather than use the pattern all the time. Of course that does run the risk of making a mistake and, yes, I made one cut a centimetre too short. But I had a stack of five pieces so that meant I cut five pieces one centimetre too short. Opps! Um, perhaps something a little stronger than ‘oops’ was uttered!
Stronger words were definitely used, along with the shedding of a few tears, over the wedding jacket incident – the most memorable of my sewing disasters. I mentioned in my Neat Sewing post that a long time ago I learnt a very valuable lesson about using an overlocker. I was sewing a jacket to wear to a friend’s wedding. I don’t know for sure but I’ll bet it was about Wednesday night before the Saturday wedding. Despite knowing I don’t work well under pressure, I am really good at leaving things to the last minute. I can’t say if rushing to get my outfit finished contributed to my mistake but the stress I had put myself under did contribute to the emotional breakdown I had when it occurred!
Anyway, back to the story. I actually hadn’t got very far with the jacket (some sort of consolation I suppose) when I was finishing one of the side seams with the overlocker. Garment seams are rarely perfectly flat because they are designed to fit around the curves of our bodies of course. So the fabric wasn’t laying flat on the overlocker bed and I didn’t take enough care to keep the fabric of the back piece of the jacket clear of the overlocker blade. It got caught up with the seam allowance and, yep! I cut right through it. I won’t describe the scene that ensued in order to retain a shred of dignity but, naturally, the whole sorry tale ended with buying something else to wear to the wedding!
I was pretty much a novice with the overlocker then but I sure learnt a lot of lessons that day. Caution with blades was one! Understanding that there is not a lot of room for error with an overlocker was another. I think I am still learning how to ‘cope’ when I have a big sewing mishap but I have come a long way in developing techniques for handling frustration as described in my Finding Your Sewing Zen post.
There have been plenty of other sewing disappointments and mishaps in my many years of sewing. Not too many ‘disasters’ thankfully. There are the times when I have not taken enough care with fitting a garment as I sew and am really disappointed with how it fits (or that it doesn’t fit at all!) when I am finished. The times I was a bit too laissez-faire about seam allowances and things don’t go together the way they should. The time I cut out the pattern pieces for a garment in two different sizes. Numerous times I’ve made an accidental slip with the scissors and cut where I didn’t mean to.
There are also times when the pattern instructions are just plain confusing or not clear and it takes lots of trial and error to make sense of it. In my patterns and tutorials, I try really hard to make the instructions really clear so this is avoided. Often it is just a matter of not making assumptions about what people know.
My best advice for when a mistake happens is to put it down (or possibly throw it down!), walk away and put some space and time between you and the mistake. You need a cool and clear head to deal with it and I find that is best done a little later on – one of the techniques I talk about in Finding your Sewing Zen.
When you return with a cool head, sometimes you can recover from sewing mistakes or problems and the project can be completed. You get out your friend, the unpicker, and you give it another try.
There are other times, though, that you have to cut your losses and start all over again. Or not.
But don’t let the mishap defeat you! Know that everyone has the occasional disaster and many more frequent oopsies. They can really take the wind out of your sails, yes, but they are all part of the process. And if you are not making mistakes, you’re probably not learning because you are not in that zone between what you can already do comfortably and those skills that are still too challenging. There is a sweet spot in between where you will be challenged enough but not too much.
If you are feeling a bit deflated, do a couple of simpler projects to find satisfaction in making once again. Regain some confidence and then go back to stretching yourself – little bit by little bit. And maybe, when you can look at it again without tears, take that lovely fabric from your ‘failed’ project and cut it down for a new project.
So tell me, what sewing mishaps have you had? Could they have been avoided if you had better instructions or more know-how? What could I write about to help you (or someone else) avoid this issue in the future?
