The Things We Forget About Sewing
Not rules. Not instructions. Just a few things worth remembering.
Notes from the sewing room
Over the past few weeks of the One Match One Make challenge, we’ve talked a lot about progress.
We’ve talked about finding time, about unfinished projects, and about taking small steps forward.
And while all of those things matter, I’ve also found myself thinking about something else: the things we forget.
I don’t mean the forgotten projects. I mean the forgotten truths. Those little reminders that become easy to lose sight of when we’re busy, distracted or comparing ourselves to other people.
The things that are so obvious when somebody else says them, but surprisingly difficult to remember when we’re sitting in front of our own sewing machine.
Progress Isn’t Always Visible
One of the easiest traps to fall into is believing that progress only counts when there’s something obvious to show for it.
A finished bag, a completed garment, a photo-worthy project. But sewing is full of invisible progress. For example, choosing fabric, learning a new technique, unpicking a mistake, working out how something fits together, preparing the pattern pieces, just making a decision!
These things don’t always produce a finished object.
But they move us forward nonetheless.
A Paused Project Isn’t a Failed Project
I think most sewists have at least one project sitting quietly in the background.
Perhaps it’s waiting for hardware, or confidence, or a little more time. It’s easy to look at unfinished projects and feel frustrated. But sometimes a project is simply paused; not abandoned, not forgotten, just waiting.
And often, returning to it is much easier than we imagine.
We Tend to Remember the Mistakes
Compliment a sewist about a project, and they’ll often point out everything that went wrong: the crooked seam, the ever-so-slightly-off pattern matching, the detail that nobody else would ever notice!
What we sometimes forget is that every project contains lessons as well as mistakes. Every make teaches us something, and so does every mistake.
The seam ripper has probably taught me almost as much as my sewing machine.
Sewing Isn’t a Race
This feels particularly relevant during a challenge.
It’s easy to compare ourselves with other people. To wonder why someone else has finished three projects while we’re still working on one. But sewing has never really been about speed. A project completed slowly is still completed. A skill learned over time is still learned. Progress made in small pockets of time is still progress.
The Things Worth Remembering
The longer I’ve sewn, the more I’ve realised that some reminders are worth returning to again and again. Not because they’re groundbreaking. Because they’re easy to forget.
So this week I’ve put together something a little different. It’s a collection called Notes from the Sewing Room.
Twelve simple observations gathered from years of starting projects, finishing projects, making mistakes and learning along the way.
They’re not rules. They’re not instructions. They’re simply reminders.
The kind of things I wish somebody had told me when I first started sewing, and the things I often need reminding of now.
You can save them to your phone, keep them nearby or simply revisit them whenever you need them. Sometimes a small reminder is all it takes to help us keep going.
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This Week’s Challenge
Choose one reminder that resonates with you.
Maybe it’s ‘Progress isn’t always visible’, or ‘A paused project isn’t a failed project’, or even ‘The next step is often smaller than it seems’. Keep it in mind during your next sewing session, and see if it changes how you think about your project.
Because sometimes the most valuable progress happens in our mindset before it happens at the sewing machine.
Until next week,
Happy sewing.