I have all these sewing projects in my head. I want to sew cushion covers made out of my sons' old t-shirts. I want to make a duvet cover out of old summer tie-die t-shirts that either don't fit or no one wears anymore. I have a secret desire to make my own tunic tops. The ones that fit and look fabulous are so hard to find. And I have sewing housekeeping. A hem hear, a mend there and a couple of old blankets that need new material.
I do not know how to use a sewing machine. I normally take my mending to a fabulous woman who does a phenomenal job for a reasonable price. Then one day I took her one of my old blankets and asked her how much it would cost to sew material onto one side; sewing it along the edges of the blanket. She quoted me $50.
I was surprised. At the time I thought that was expensive. It was 4 straight lines. I was supplying all the material. How hard could it be?
As I type the words "how hard could it be" imagine an ominous echo reverberating around your head. How hard could it be? How hard could it be? How hard could it be? I have gotten myself into so many unintended experiences asking this simple question. And after years you'd think I'd learn. The answer is either not at all or very, very, very, hard.
So, today I'm writing about my little life lesson called learning the value of a service. I have always respected seamstresses. People who are able to make clothes are very clever people indeed. However since my escapade into sewing I now believe that people who make clothes should hold the same social reverence as surgeons. I had no idea.
After getting the quote for my blanket I took it home and decided I was going to learn how to sew.
The first thing I needed was a sewing machine. A sewing machine that was relatively easy to learn on, that wouldn't cost the world and could handle blankets. I went searching for my sewing machine... during a pandemic when everyone was sewing masks. You could not get a sewing machine for love or money.
My blanket and mending projects languished in a corner for a long time. When I finally mended my eldest sons pajama bottoms, they fit my youngest. Then during Black Friday madness at Michaels a great friend who works there texted me that they had sewing machines in stock and on sale but they were going fast. I asked her to grab one for me. She had to argue with her manager because as she was taking the last machine off the shelf, 5 orders came in for the same machine. She literally pulled the "I am a loyal employ and just pulled 40 hours of overtime you will let me buy this machine". And it worked. Then even more fabulously she went in with my mum and gave it to me for Christmas.
Generally when I learn new things, I am lucky enough to have an innate aptitude. I understand the gist and then it's a matter of practice and figuring out how I made the mistakes I made. Everything else that's not in my wheel house, I fear. Witness my trepidation over making granola.
Turns out I have zero aptitude for sewing. Learning to set up the machine challenged every one of my brain synapses. The first time I tried, it took me three hours to thread the machine and the bobbin properly. I felt desperate frustration that brought tears to my eyes and a tantrum to my soul. I really wanted to take a baseball bat to this machine and hammer it into tiny, tiny pieces.
When I was little, seven or eight, I broke my wrist and had to wear a cast. During that time I was scheduled to perform at a community piano recital that my piano teacher was hosting for her students' parents. With huge trepidation, I walked up onto that stage and attempted to play my song with a cast. It started off well enough and then I flubbed a note. And then I flubbed another note. After the fourth flubbed note I stopped, turned to where my mother was seated in the audience and yelled "I TOLD YOU I can't do THIS." The frustrated rage that overcame me could only be released through loud volume and social embarrassment. I had no self regulation.
That is how frustrated I felt trying to learn how to thread this sewing machine. Only there was no one to yell at but me. I was doing this voluntarily. And my failure to grasp how it worked was not a fun feeling. Through sheer teeth gritting perseverance I reviewed everything I'd done so far and started again. Turns out I'd threaded the upper part (still no idea what it's called) and it hadn't caught on the metal loopy thing that goes up and down.
The sense of relief when I finally figured it out defies description. I was giddy with my success and I had yet to sew a stich. I was coming to realize that $50 was looking like a serious bargain.
I started off small. At first I wasn't sewing anything. Just little squares I'd cut out. Running a line through the middle. I could do this. I was building my confidence. Feeling pretty please with myself. Then I moved on to simple mending. I sewed up the aforementioned pajama bottoms. It was a simple straight line where a hem had come undone. It worked. I was a genius. I could take my place in the famous French ateliers. Alexander McQueen and I had something in common.
My naiveté was hilarious. Then I grappled with a fitted shit where the corner had ripped along the seam. This required a different colour of thread. Which meant a new bobbin. Damn bobbins. This time it only took an hour to re-thread the machine. I was getting the hang of it. I was logging my time into the 10,000 hour journey to sewing machine mastery. Then I had to sew a straight line over a jagged tear, with one end of the sheet bunched up culminating in a elastic hem. Good lord it was not pretty. But I closed that gab. And no one will ever know because it's on the inside of the corner and it's my sheet. I was sensing I was far from a seat at the French ateliers. This was when I realized that my seamstress had probably quoted me a discount for the blanket project.
Then bored with myself and impatient to get to the "good stuff" I jumped into the deep end and started on my blanket project. Please keep in mind that the "deep end" is relative. I grabbed the jersey sheet that I wanted to sew onto the blanket and put it up against the blanket itself. They were not the same size. The sheet was slightly wider and longer. What?! I didn't want to cut the sheet so I devised a plan that I'd sew the sheet around the blanket.
The first stage was to sew the two top widths together. Success. Except my attention to detail comes and goes and this time it was nowhere in sight. I sewed the wrong side of the sheet and left the seems out for all to see. Dammit! Also lets talk about sewing in a straight line. I can do it for 2 inches. Then things go sideways, sometimes literally. Yes I was using the guide; or at least trying to. Once that needle starts going and the material feeder starts ramping up, with a slight touch of your foot you've got a runaway train. And you can create a fabulous thread burr if the material does not move forward. At one point I had to take a knife and cut through the threads to get the material out from under the foot and off the little metal plate. It was an actual struggle that involved my muscles.
It's going to take me all kinds of practice to be able to sew with a sewing machine well. It bears repeating, I. had. no. idea. I have humbly learned the value of sewing with a sewing machine. The problem is I now own a sewing machine and I can't quit because what kind of example would that show my kids?
I've actually learned more than one lesson through this experience. One: talented Seamstresses deserve to be paid A LOT of money. That is a serious skill. This is a Harvard PhD, 12 years of medical education skill. Talented seamstresses are the surgeons of the garment industry.
And two: I have an aversion to hard. Hard brings up all kinds of negative emotions that I do not like to feel. It takes courage to tackle something hard. It takes even more courage to stick with something hard. Failing over and over again requires persistence and faith and humour. Hard requires an ability to see the teeny tiny increments of success and celebrate the heck out of them. Hard means you are witness to all your immaturity; your inability to control your reaction, your spoiled princess like qualities that rear their ugly head. And these stakes are non existent. Imagine if there was actually something on the line. Do you know that Thomas Edison quote? The one where he says he figured out 852 ways not to invent a light bulb. I would think "that's clever" and then dismiss it. It didn't settle into my awareness until I started learning all the ways not to thread a sewing machine and all the ways not to sew a straight line.
So for all those kids who yell "I can't do it" and then figure out how to do it; or men and woman who believe in the possibility of repair and have the courage to try, my hats off to you! I have recently learned that this is a very big deal.
