There is such a thing as too careful
01.20.2019
Last fall I was a bit more adventurous in my sewing, foraying into knits, lingerie and other tricky domains, and over the holidays seemed like a nice time to take on something a bit more familiar. I returned to the tried and true Grainline Archer and Alder.
I laid out the pattern, and carefully checked, double cheked and triple checked that I had all the right pieces to combine the patterns successfully (I did NOT want a repeat of this debacle, which all began with a very confusing Archer + Alder mashup). Naturally, mistakes were made. This time, I bought JUST the right amount of fabric. As in, with all the pieces laid out it was clear I would not have enough material to re cut any pieces if I messed up. I know myself, so I knew to expect some trouble along the way. Now I also knew that I couldn’t afford to be careless, or I’d run out of material. No pressure. Oh, and also, the right and wrong sides of thwe fabric were nearly impossible to tell apart, so I knew I’d be scrutinizing every single step to make sure I had the right set up.
Turns out, when I’m extremely careful, I risk going around the bend back to careless. With my attention absolutely laser focused on checking the right vs. wrong sides of the fabric over and over, I was not going to let a detail get by me. That, my friends, is how without letting any tiny details get by, I nearly made a dress with 2 left sides 🤣.
Just as I was getting ready to assemble the dress body, I realized something didn’t seem quite right. I laid the pieces on my bed and confirmed that there were 2 left sides. Talk about missing the forest for the trees! I was zoomed in so closely, so uptightly, on the scarcity of fabric, and the difficulty telling right side from wrong, that I didn’t give any attention at all to the overall structure of the garment, and good old fashioned common sense.
As I write this, I’m torn between a few possible lessons to learn here:
The first is that out of an abundance of anxiety and a shortage of commonsense, I focused too narrowly and missed the point. The second, is that as a newer sewist I’m still trying to learn a lot at once. When you’re trying to learn a lot at once you just can’t know what you don’t know. Last, I am moved by the idea, espoused in narrative therapy, that often our worst choices and behaviors are expressions of deep and good values, gone a bit awry in implementation. In this context, that means that while I didn’t get it quite right, I can feel at least a little better knowing that I did my best and cared deeply.
Ultimately, after slowly unpicking the entire gathered waist and button band and remaking them right sides out, I decided to let this dress teach me that sometimes even if I’m careful, and even if I work slowly, and even if I’ve made the pattern a bunch of times before, mistakes are just plain inevitable. The good news is, I know a lot more now than I did before I made it, and that’s actually the point.