This dress was one of my Christmas presents this year….and it truly was one of my favorite gifts. It was a dress my mom wore in the late 50’s as a junior bridesmaid. And since I am the sewer in the family (lucky me) she gave it to me. Sorry, if it looks a bit big on the dress form, it is. The dress is about a girls size 12 or so and it’s pinned on a dress form that is a girls’ size 6.
My mom got this dress (and she even remembers that it cost around $40—a ton of money) as part of a bridal party for my Great Aunt’s wedding. It was originally a bridesmaid dress, but my grandma took it to a friend who ripped the whole dress apart and resized it down for my mom. And the best part….she handstitched the WHOLE thing back together. Awesome.
And to have such an amazing piece of sewing history–I really feel lucky. Sewing has taught me so much…..and I think if anything, they are more life lessons than sewing lessons.
I am feeling the need to share a few today. I think there are probably many others lessons learned, but these are the few I have been pondering lately.
1. Sewing has taught me self confidence. Like the first time I put in a zipper. Badly sewn as it was….I felt a sense of “I did-it-ness.” And boy, some days do I need a dose of self confidence (don’t we all?)
2. Sewing has taught me patience. A garment isn’t completed in a day. Neither am I….and neither are my children. We are all works in progress.
3. Sewing has taught me perseverance. Like the recent time I sewed a whole tightly gathered skirt on backwards. I can also remember when I first started sewing again, I wanted to leave the mistakes in….but I could hear a voice in my head saying “do it right.” So, I would (sometimes begrudgingly) pick it out and redo it. But the effort was always worth it in the end.
4. Sewing has taught me joy. I find so much joy in seeing a finished product. It’s usually late at night, when I am editing a photo or putting up a post, but seeing something I have made makes me happy. And it’s not just in seeing my own stuff (ok, truth be told, I don’t always see joy in my own stuff) but also seeing things others have sewn.
5. Sewing has taught me that things don’t have to be perfect to be beautiful. (Totally stolen from all our favorite The Nester.) But it’s true. My sewing doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be my best (or my best at the time).
Ok, everyone your turn, what life lessons have you learned from sewing (or crocheting, or knitting, or….)?
~Elizabeth
Sewing has taught me not to accept other’s vision of me. I don’t have to wear what’s in the store, or be limited by how something on the rack fits. I can start from scratch or alter a store find until it is unique to me, instead of trying to fit myself into a mold.
Sewing has taught me to make my own way in the world. I don’t need to accept little girl clothes that say “brat” across the chest. If I can dream it, I can sew it. Or more correctly, I can simplify that dream and try to copy it.
Sewing has taught me to love beautiful things. To appreciate rows of fabric colors and textures and to admire a beautiful garment.
sewing has taught me all of these as well, but mostly it has given me self confindence. i remember in the beginning where i would make someone a gift and be so giddy about it that i couldnt wait to give it to them. then i would get nervous and doubt myself. i would worry if they would like it or not, and what would i do if they didnt like it. then i would look at what i made again and love it even more…thus the cycle would start all over again until they opened that package. then i came to the realization one day, that yes it mattered if they liked it or not, but the truth was, i was actually giving myself a better gift with each new stitch.
and while we are talking about self confidence, i have something to confess. i was at my sils one day and saw a pair of pjs i made for my newphew peeking out of the pile of clothes. i was so curious to see it they were still in one piece that i took a little peek. they were actually my first pair of pjs and they were still in one piece and all the hems still intact…but they were well loved! that right there gave me another gift:)
great post!
great post! i think about how lucky I am to have sewing as a hobby every day, it makes me so happy!
I come from a long line of sewers. My girls have worn dresses that were hand stitched for my mother when she was a baby by her grandmother, that makes it their great-great grandmother. She taught her daughter to sew, who taught her daughter (my mom) to sew, who taught me to sew and someday I’ll teach each of my 4 girls to sew. It truly is a lost art and I hate that. When I sew, I feel my grandmother watching me. I feel the generations of strong women cheering me on and I love it! I hope someday my girls feel that same thing!
Love this post!
Sewing is teaching me to let go of my perfectionism. It’s not something that I’m naturally good at, and things aren’t going to turn out perfectly. It took me a few years to get past my perfectionism and just start sewing for the sake of learning something new—and to be able to have pride in my projects, whether they turn out perfectly or not.
Oh, I am so with you there! I despise the sayings on little-girl clothes these days!
Awesome post! One thing sewing has taught me is that the little bit of extra effort is always worth it in the end. I’m whatever the opposite of a perfectionist is–I get frustrated with how long something is taking and I think, “It’s good enough! Let’s just finish it up and call it good!” I tend to cut corners and take shortcuts and finish things quickly, even if it means a sloppy finished product, and sewing has taught me that even if I’m tired or frustrated, putting in those few extra minutes to iron or pin or adjust really makes a big difference. Shortcuts are nice sometimes, but if they mean a messy piece that will never be used, they aren’t worth the small amount of time I saved! That translates kind of nicely to real life . . . the little extra effort it takes to be patient instead of snap at someone or give a hug instead of roll my eyes or just take a deep breath before reacting to something when I’m tired and grumpy really pays off, too 🙂
I love this ideas for a post. Sewing has taught me mindfulness and the ability to enjoy the process. While the finished product is always (ok, not always!) exciting, sometimes the rhythm of sewing – cutting, pinning, sewing almost become a meditation.
Ditto to everything you said! I find a lot of joy in sewing. I love seeing a piece of fabric take shape and become something functional and beautiful, and useful. It is the same feeling I had the first time I developed my own photograph, you dip a piece of white paper into the developer and suddenly the image appears, and you know that you did it. Sewing has taught me that there is usually more than one way to “do it right”, sometimes that is my way, and sometimes it is not. It has taught me that I can do more than I thought I could. At times, it does make me covet that really awesome Bernina quilting machine that is the same size as a mid arm quilting machine and does everything I could ever dream of doing, but the price tag is scary, those times I have to remind myself to be content with my already great Bernina machine. 🙂
Love this post! Sewing has taught me a new skill, to think about clothes differently (and learn from them), and it really makes me happy that my daughter has unique and comfy clothes that aren’t plastered with Dora or Elmo or some sassy phrase. (she’s sassy enough as it is!).
This was such a great post! Sewing been such a great way for me as a stay-at-home mom to find a way to have “me” time while showing love for my family. It has challenged me to be creative and precise at at the same time. It also introduced me to the whole sewing blog community that I love so much!
I am going to re-post this to my page (with a shout out to the blog of course). This is EXACTLY how I feel. Thank you for sharing this and giving me the words to express how I feel inside. It’s so wonderful to have finally found my “thing” and it’s wonderful meeting other sewers online and hearing their stories too! <3
this is such a great post ! it was interesting to read what everyone wrote.
I totally agree with everything you said !
maybe currently the #1 for me is joy, expressing myself creatively is giving me a lot of joy 🙂
I love the creativity, the originality, the special touches; making something that someone can’t just go out and buy! Adding that special button to a dress for my granddaughter, or using a favorite color for a purse (with extra pockets!) for my sister, custom curtains in the living room. I sew, quilt, knit and crochet – I always have something to do, am never bored. I work with people who do nothing but work and don’t know what they would do if they were home – I don’t have that problem!
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I love (and agree with) what everyone else has already written. Another lesson is that if I rush through life too quickly, it sometimes turns out a little wonky 🙂
wonderful post and comments!! I love that sewing has neutralized my body insecurities. Once I accepted the challenge of learning to fit, I accepted my body as it is and moved towards the solution, which is having clothes that fit me.
🙂
This is so timely, I just got back into sewing and I’m scared…
I love this post, girls!!!
Sewing has taught me that things are possible that don’t seem possible! Like having the budget to shop at Anthro- that’s not possible in my life right now. But making some of the loveliness inspired by theirs IS. Also, just the idea that I’d be sewing anything at all a few years ago was a total impossibility. An yet here we are. I love that.
I love all of the lessons you’ve learned from a sewing machine too! Thanks for sharing!:)
I love this post, girls!!!
Sewing has taught me that things are possible that don’t seem possible! Like having the budget to shop at Anthro- that’s not possible in my life right now. But making some of the loveliness inspired by theirs IS. Also, just the idea that I’d be sewing anything at all a few years ago was a total impossibility. An yet here we are. I love that.
I love all of the lessons you’ve learned from a sewing machine too! Thanks for sharing!:)
Sewing has taught me that I have time to correct any mistakes in my life…it can be done over and correctly.