Cutting loose

I spent the morning at Spoonflower headquarters yesterday, packaging fabric for mailing--a video to come soon!--and chatting with Danielle about fabric and Photoshop and photography.  When the babysitter returned with our girls, though, it was time to get outta there and get the kids something to eat--pronto, like.  I remembered my purse, I remembered the diaper bag, I remembered the stroller, the bag of library books, the bag of snacks, the water bottles, and the girls' special stuffed animals.  I did not, however, remember my laptop.  It stayed on the office sofa all afternoon and then went with Stephen to a class for the evening before it came home with him.  That meant I had no internet access for about 10 hours--yikes!

So instead I did a little sewing, which was not a bad consolation prize at all.  While the little girls slept, my oldest daughter and I went through my sewing basket to see what we could come up with to do.  She's going into the fifth grade on Monday and we both had back-to-school clothing on our minds.  In my giant pile of cloth, we found this late 60's era purple pattern cocktail dress made of a super-heavy, nubby material--Hawaiian maybe?  Some kind of barkcloth?  I'd bought it solely for the phenomenal fabric, half-thinking that I'd turn it into a skirt for someone.  My daughter, though, wanted it as a dress.

I consider myself an advanced beginner at sewing.  I've made up many articles of clothing from patterns at this point, but haven't altered an existing garment since I was just goofing around with sewing in college.  (And I was by no means good at it back then!  I just had pretty low standards for fit and seam straightness and that kind of thing.)  But my daughter was so excited about the idea of a wild purple print dress for herself.  I took a deep breath.  And started cutting.

I cut off about 12 inches of the hem, I ripped out armhole and neckline facings, I notched liberally, I took in side seams and opened up the neckline, and pretty soon I had a passable dress that could fit a 10-year old.  But more than that?  I had a blast!   It's not fine couture or anything.  The seams are a little roll-y without those facings and the armholes are a tad too big.  My daughter loves it, though, and it felt great to just whip something up without worrying if I'd mess it up or make it look less-than-perfect.

I guess the moral of this sewing story is that I shouldn't get so hung up with sewing perfection.  Why allow myself to get frustrated about something I really love to do?  Sometimes it's just fun to bust out the scissors and start cutting, right?  Right.