What Sewing Has Taught Me (Apart from Sewing)

A few things I've discovered along the way

I’ve been sewing for a long time, and obviously my sewing machine has taught me a lot about sewing. I’ve learnt about stitch lengths and tension, which needles to use for different fabrics, how to persuade a zip to behave and, perhaps most importantly, that pressing really does make a difference.

Photo by Randi Wilson on Unsplash

But I think it’s also taught me quite a few things that have very little to do with sewing.

The first is patience.

I’m not naturally a particularly patient person, and sewing has a rather irritating way of exposing this. You know when you’re halfway through something, and you’re tempted to skip the pressing because you just want to get on with it? Or when you’ve realised that something isn’t quite right but decide to carry on anyway because surely it will somehow sort itself out? It won’t.

I’ve learnt, usually after doing it the wrong way first, that taking an extra few minutes at the beginning can save an awful lot of frustration later. Sometimes I really do just need to stop, read the instructions again, check what I’m doing and start from the beginning of that particular step.

Which leads quite neatly to the next thing sewing has taught me: problem solving.

From time to time, things go wrong when I sew; it’s inevitable. Sometimes I know exactly why, and sometimes I absolutely don’t. I can have two pieces of fabric that definitely look as though they should fit together, only to discover that they don’t. I might sew something in the wrong order, put a zip in only to discover that I forgot the zip pull, or find that the fabric has stretched just enough that my beautiful stripes simply do not line up anymore!

Over the years, I’ve spent quite a lot of time sitting at my sewing machine wondering what on earth I’ve done, and I have some unfinished projects hidden away, testament to the fact that I never quite figured it out.

But I don’t really get very far by getting cross with it. Eventually I have to work backwards, look at what I’ve done and try to work out where things went wrong. And quite often, once I’ve found the problem, the solution is actually quite simple.

I think there’s something quite useful about learning not to panic when something goes wrong. I’m still not great at this, but I keep trying to be better.

Then there is persistence, which is probably something I’ve needed to learn more than once. There have been plenty of sewing projects where I’ve reached a point and thought, I really don’t want to do this anymore. Sometimes that’s because the project isn’t going well. Sometimes I’ve discovered that the fabric isn’t doing what I expected it to do, or I’ve made a mistake that means I need to undo half an hour’s work. And occasionally I’ve simply fallen out of love with the project.

I’ve learnt that it’s perfectly OK to put it away and come back to it another day. In fact, sometimes that’s exactly what needs to happen. I can spend ages staring at a problem without seeing the answer, put it down, make a cup of tea and come back to it the next day wondering why I ever thought it was difficult in the first place.

Sometimes I might come back and decide I don’t actually want to finish it at all, and I’m increasingly comfortable with that too. Not every project has to become a finished object. Sometimes I’ve learnt something from it, or discovered that I don’t like working with a particular fabric, or realised that the pattern isn’t really for me. That’s not necessarily a failed project. It’s just part of finding out what I like.

Probably the biggest lesson, though, has been learning to let go of perfection.

This is particularly difficult because when I’ve made something myself, I know exactly where every little imperfection is. I know that one line of stitching isn’t quite straight. I know that the pattern match isn’t absolutely perfect. I know there is a tiny bit of puckering that nobody else would ever notice.

And because I know it’s there, I see it every time I look at the thing.

But I’ve come to realise that handmade things aren’t supposed to look as though they’ve been produced by a machine in a factory. Well, technically they might have been produced by a machine in my sewing room, but you know what I mean. There is something rather lovely about seeing evidence that something has been crafted and considered by someone. A slightly imperfect stitch doesn’t necessarily detract from the finished item. It should remind you that it was individually made by a person with love and care rather than being mass-produced.

And then, of course, there is the lesson that sewing has taught me perhaps more times than I care to admit: sometimes the only option is to unpick it.

There is nothing quite like spending twenty minutes carefully sewing something together, admiring my work and then realising that I’ve put it on the wrong way round. So I unpick it. I sew it again. I discover I’ve made a different mistake. (At this point, there may be some stern words with my sewing machine.) But eventually, I get there.

And perhaps that’s the thing I like most about sewing. It gives me a very tangible reminder that making things isn’t always a straightforward process. Sometimes I will get it right the first time, but quite often I don’t. I make a mistake, I work out what happened, I try again, and eventually I have something I didn’t have before.

I think that’s probably a pretty good way to approach quite a lot of things.

So yes, my sewing machine has taught me about stitch length, tension, seam allowances and pressing. But it has also taught me to slow down a little, to look at a problem rather than immediately assuming I’ve failed, and to accept that sometimes the best thing I can do is take something apart and start again.

And I’m still working on the patience part.

I’m pretty sure my sewing machine knows that.

What has sewing taught you?

I’d love to hear what you’ve learnt along the way — whether it’s something practical, something unexpected, or simply a lesson you’ve had to learn the hard way.

Happy sewing!

Suzanne