Oops! Owning up to sewing mistakes
Image courtesy of kjnnt / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I interrupt the normal blogging service of showing finished items to talk about another side of the construction process. All too often, I make mistakes when sewing. Most are ridiculously silly and many times I don’t want to share them with you. Hands up if you feel the same. Yes, I thought I wasn't alone! I’ll often include a few small mistakes in a post but that’s as far as I have gone, until now! Last weekend I had an epic fail and while I can’t bear to bring you the details in all its glory, I thought it would be fun to share some of my mistakes and invite you to tell me your stories.
So deep breath and here goes. My mistakes include (please don’t judge me too harshly):
- Bravely stitched over pins and then heard a loud crunch. I wasted 30 minutes taking my machine apart to dig out the broken pin pieces. Have I learnt my lesson? No, I still stitch over pins!
- Spent ages carefully hand stitching bias finishing on a neckline and arm completely forgetting to clip the curves and thus forcing unpicking and more hand stitching.
- For a dress, I spent time getting the toile to fit well but a “in progress” fit revealed it wouldn't do up. For hours I couldn't figure out why until I eventually spotted a giant (we’re talking 5cm) accidental tuck in the waistband.
- Traced a pattern carefully and then found I had traced the wrong size for the sleeves and only found out when I stitched the top. As the top was loose fitting, I didn't bother with a toile!
- Chose to move the zip from the centre back of a dress to the side and then didn't add it in. No wonder it wouldn't go over my chest!
- Lost track of how many times I have stitched the right side to the wrong side. It's more embarrassing when most of them are with the darts on the outside!
- Took my eyes off of my overlocker for a second and found the blade had cut the fabric well over the seam line.
And the worst?
- Merrily cut out perfectly and stitched up the item, only to find on step 20 (or whatever) that I didn't have all of the pieces. Not only that, I didn't have enough fabric to complete the item. To add insult to injury, the store is sold out of that particular fabric! Seeing the look on your boyfriend’s face when you admit what you have done is an interesting experience...
I should say that tiredness and alcohol played a very small part in the above. I learnt my lesson quickly when I looked at my stitching following three glasses of wine... Hangs head in shame.
Your turn now! Please tell me I’m not alone in making (big) mistakes when stitching.
Go on, don’t be shy - be brave and think of this as some form of group therapy until it is all swept under the carpet again.