Sewing Update

I’ve been steadily working on my backtack project for the last week. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, but this is my very first time ever working with a pattern, so I’ve been struggling a bit. In the last week I’ve called my grandma four times to ask for definitions of terms in the directions I’m not familiar with, called my mom five times to read her passages in the directions for help with deciphering and gotten Jason involved at least twice.

For me, the hardest part of this whole sewing-with-a-pattern process is that sometimes it doesn’t matter how many times I read a step, or who I get to read it with me, I cannot for the life of me make heads or tails of what it wants me to do. And even if I do exactly what it seems like it’s directing me to do, it seems like it will end up looking completely wrong (raw ends showing and whatnot). My solution to this, this week, has been, to veer off in another direction from the pattern and just do what I think makes sense.

Anyway, last night I got to yet another one of these points that haven’t been making any sense to me, and I had an epiphany. All of the sudden I understood what they had been meaning all along. I was elated and frustrated with myself all at the same time. Looking back at what I had already done I could see where doing what they were recommending would have made my work less complex and more straight and flawless. But, I thought to myself, this is what the prototype version is for, I will learn from my error and move forward, making sure to do it right the next time.

Unfortunately, in the wee hours of this morning my perfectionist side dug in and made an executive decision to take it apart and do it correctly. And looking at it now, I’m glad I did it, it’s SO much better. Still not perfect, but I’m happy with my progress.