This post is part of a series. See the first "Things I Love About Sewing" post here.
I learned to use a sewing machine in 8th grade Home Economics at Herbert Hoover Junior High School in Potomac, Maryland. For my final project I sewed a pair of Bermuda shorts with seams so wonky I got a C-. I never wore my shorts, but I new that I liked to sew and after the year ended I bought a sewing machine.
That summer I took a class for kids at G Street Fabrics in Rockville. We were to make a shirt from a McCall's pattern. Eager to get started I pulled out the tissue at home and cut out the whole pattern, not realizing that I was cutting away the seam allowances, too. In class the next day, the teacher was really angry with me and I felt like I'd failed before I began. I finished the shirt under her guidance despite my mistake, but the whole process seemed so complex and mysterious and I knew I was bound to screw it up a million times if I tried to sew something like that at home, without anyone to help me.
I got the impression that sewing was all about rules. It was like a secret club with its own bylaws and its own language. You had to be let in and shown around by your mom or your grandma who would teach you the right way to do everything. Only my mom and grandma didn't know how to sew so I was locked out.
It was another 15 years before I started using my sewing machine again. As an adult it dawned on me that I didn't need to sew from a pattern. I didn't need to make shorts, or cut out tissue along the right lines. I could just draw a picture, cut some fabric, and sew it together and see what happened. I could make it up.
That was when sewing became a creative media for me. For a while I literally didn't follow any rules at all. I didn't want to get bogged down. I just wanted to make animals.
When my stitches began to pop I figured out how to control the stitch lenght and the tension. When the seams puckered unexpectedly I figured out what grain was and how to use it make the fabric behave the way I wanted it to. Over the last few years I've read dozens of sewing books cover to cover, even the tedious pattern instructions, to figure out the answers to all of my questions. And now I speak the language.
I do sew by the rules most of the time because they're useful, they help me make a better finished piece. But you don't have to follow the rules to sew creatively, and that is something I love about sewing.
This is really interesting, Abby! It’s so awesome that you started doing your own patterns and figured things out that way. I learned to sew in home ec class and also from my mom and gramma, but it’s only recently that I’ve felt brave enough to NOT follow a pattern but develop my own. I know how to do things the “right” way, but in a way I think it’s even harder to try to do your own thing after learning from following the rules and patterns.
You know, Karissa, that's actually a great point. Sometimes not knowing the right way give you the freedom to explore without second guessing yourself.
Awesome that you will be able to pass everything you learned down to your kids and keep them from feeling intimidated about sewing!
I hope so! My two older daughters like to sew and love to look through all of my fabric and my sewing books. Let's hope!
Woah, seriously? My brother & sister attended Hoover, my almost Kindergartener is poised to begin his school career at Wayside and I shop at G Street, I’m ashamed to admit it, nearly every week. You totally just blew my mind. 🙂
I am with you, though. Rules are what kept me from sewing for many, many years. Quilting seemed to COMPLICATED. Clothing was even worse! I wasn’t until I navigated the ‘ocean’ myself that I realized that rules are there for a reason: to be broken.
I could have written your post! I have learned so much by not following rules AND by just making toys. I figure that’s how our Grandmas did it…
Lots of vintage patterns (particularly mail order toy patterns from the 40s/50s) were scare on instructions. Not to mention, oftentimes, the pattern pieces look nothing like the adorable illustrations on the pattern cover.
I’ve learned the most just by trial and error!
Trial and error is a seriously good teacher if you are motivated to get things to work. It literally is a matter of trying and trying and trying again. But when it finally works it might be the biggest high ever!
Alyson- That's hilarious! I went to Wayside from 3rd-6th grade (before that we were zoned to Lake Normandy when it used to be a school). Although I wasn't so hot on the class I took, I do love G Street! And three cheers for breaking the rules, sometimes only to realize that they make sense just as they are written.
Over the last few years I’ve figured out sewing is all about techniques and how you use them to make something. I hate following patterns and always change them in someway. When I first started it was hard because I didn’t know the techniques/construction. Now I can read through the sewing idea/pattern and understand where I’m comfortable making changes or where I have to follow the rules. I’ve also tried traditional quilting with the fancy rulers and all that. Right now it’s too technical, too many pieces, and too much time but I knew I had to try it to understand other things and to find the style I feel comfortable with. What’s cool about sewing is today you have to follow the rules but in time you understand how to follow your own rules.
So well said! Thank you.
Wow – i had the opposite experience, with a similar result. My mum is a dressmaker, and made all the school theatre costumes, but that just made the sewing machine seem even more unapproachable.
I remember being in tears the night before my first sewing lesson in home ec, fearing the teachers would expect so much of me.
I resisted machine sewing for about 15 years, focussing on handwork, but in the last few years I’ve taken the plunge.
Thank you so much for this post! Makes me feel like I’m not doing completely the Wrong Thing. I never really “learnt” to sew, I’ve just been messing about on my sewing machine. I’m right at the beginning, but my daughter already loves the things I have made for her, and I can see that this is a hobby I will be in love with for a long long time!
Three cheers for messing around on your sewing machine!
I’m scared to death to not follow the rules when it comes to sewing. I’m such a newbie at it all I know is to follow the directions given. I don’t know that I will ever be brave enough to “color outside the lines”!
You can do it! One of the things I admire most about my 7-year-old when she sits at the sewing machine is her feeling of freedom. No patterns. She gets an idea, sometimes draws a little picture, than cuts some fabric and starts sewing. It’s really amazing to watch! No fear. I feel like I really got interested in sewing when I realized that there was no sewing dictator out there who was going to shoot me down for doing it “wrong.” I could make whatever I wanted and learn as I go!