When I was a little girl I loved to pretend I was crafty. I loved to sit at my mother’s old sewing machine and make things that were either not functional or some what functional but not all that pretty. My mother would occasionally use her machine to make a dress for a dance or costumes for school plays and I never really thought “hey maybe I should help her and learn something in the process.” Not once did I ask if she would show me how to do it myself and I deeply regret that now.
Over the years I have dabbled in some basic sewing. Every once in awhile I would get an itch to create something. I made a pretty neat purse once by up-cycling an old jean skirt when I was a teenager. It functioned pretty well but did not hold up very long. A few years ago my husband helped me pick out and purchase my first machine and I tried to make curtains for my living room and got in way over my head, they were just too big. So I quit for awhile after that thinking I was just no good and what a waste of all that money it was. Then after four years of infertility I finally was pregnant and to make a long story short I get extremely addicted to cloth diapers, extremely. So the itch started again.
I am spending tons of money on diapers, tons. Lets just not share the numbers okay? I started to look at all the mamas out there that are making their own and I thought, “I want to do that!” This time though I really wanted to learn how to sew. Making diapers is not easy and not something one can just start with, so...I ventured into the world of teaching myself to sew.
I googled and pinterested classes and easy tutorials, basics and easy projects to get me started. I made a few things here and there, an elastic bookmark I don’t really like, a fancy burp cloth (my daughter has grown out of needing them). I got a little impatient and tried to jump right into making a diaper cover after only a few lessons on basic stitching. Well, lets say, it’s functional. It’s wonky and the elastic for the legs are not even and the snaps are in the wrong place and I’m pretty sure not one inch of the seams are straight but it doesn’t leak.
After that, I realized I can’t be impatient with this process. Sewing takes time and lots of practice. Something I am not very good at. I also realized I needed to practice with things that I am going to actually need and use because, well, I will want them to come out better if I care about them. So, back to Pinterest and Google I went.
So far I have made a play purse for my daughter that I don’t think looks half bad, a bandanna for my doxie pup, Dexter, and curtains for my bathroom (which turned out pretty dang good if I do say so myself). Something that has dawned on me through these projects is that sewing teaches you a lot of life lessons. I now understand why it such a great thing to teach little girls (or boys, hey these life lessons are handy for any gender). One thing that sewing is teaching me is patience.
I learned through this process you can not skimp or cut corners if you want a quality product. Each step takes time and should be done in a certain sequence. Yes you must pause in between each step and double check your work. When turning and top-stitching, you really need to iron, my least favorite part of a project. The foot pedal is not a gas pedal in a car, it does not help you to go faster. The slower you start the better. Do not forget to reinforce your straight stitches in your haste. Take the time to trim down your seams. I could go on but my point is that patience is a virtue and I wish someone had made me learn that as a child. As the baby in my family I am spoiled. I thought that four years of infertility had cured me of this inability to wait for the good things. It did not. Patience is something that I am still working on in myself every day, especially with a toddler running my life now.
I wish that I had asked my mom to teach me to sew, maybe, just maybe I would have learned this lesson early in life. Good things come out of hard work and patience. I will be teaching my daughter how to sew, whether she likes it or not. Not just because I think I missed out. It’s a good skill to know, even just the basics, but it will also be good for her. I will be sitting her down at my machine and teaching her some great life lessons. I will be teaching her to slow down, to take each step at a time. To work carefully. To work hard. To watch her hard work make something beautiful. To watch her hard work make something useful. I will also teach my son to sew, if God so chooses to bless us another time and it turns out out be a boy, so that he also can learn these beautiful life lessons. It’s not easy to teach a child patience in a world that is filled with immediate gratification. I want my children to know what it is to work hard at something and watch something beautiful come from it. Hopefully they find it as rewarding as I do. I really just love my new curtains.
