The Art of Not Giving Up (Patreon)

So, last post (a while ago, I know, I know) I wrote about being okay with giving up- I have so many projects that I've started and not finished, and it's healthy to be able to say: Nope. Done with this. It's not the right thing for me/now/my energies/my resources/skills/talents/etc. Today's post is a little bit of the opposite.

Let's set the scene a little first. You know me. I'm a person with a multitude of interests, hobbies, ambition- not too much inhibition/fear when it comes to unfamiliar paths, but not always a lot of focus, not always a lot of direction. A little bit of self-knowledge never hurt anyone. I have a wealth of unfinished projects- documents of ideas, bins of patterns, tools, fabric, notebooks, barely begun stories and books and poems, sketches, manuals, everything. Things sit in project purgatory for years, decades even.

So why not give up more? Probably I should, and some projects I've effectively have forgotten enough that they are given up. But some of them, that calculation I made in my last post, the equation added up to a different answer: I liked the fabric enough, the storyline was still compelling enough, things were not so foregone that I couldn't undo the things that needed undoing, or I felt the process was teaching me something or giving me some kind of satisfaction, whether it's a sense of completion or perseverance or something else. And maybe the project feels successful- maybe it is what I intended (but more often than not it's at least a little different than I envisioned.)

So here I am, sixteen months into my project, sewing myself a pair of jeans, finally finished. I have taken in the legs twice, the crotch three times, the waistband three times, the belt loops twice, and the button hole structure (though not the hole itself) three times. I learned about not cutting corners, and about which things I can fix and how. Some of this is from me learning to sew mostly from patterns.

1. Tissue fit. This has seemed IMPOSSIBLE to do as an antisocial or solo sewist, but my mom has told me that it's how she sewed her garments back in the day. I just imagine myself ripping the paper- I do it all the time. And it seems hard to translate what cloth does to tissue paper, but it's the thing all the podcasts and blogs tell one to do, and some of these edits can only be done before you cut,  so I either have to know exactly what kind of edit I need to make on which garments, or I have to tissue fit.

2. Muslin. I'm again kind of confused how one will get the muslin to be the same weight/drape/stretch as the final fabric, but it seems like the right way to get a good fit. Does one just baste every seam and then take it apart and use it as a pattern piece? Research must be done.

3. Press. I already press my seams (as advised by the patterns), but it seems that there are TECHNIQUES for optimal pressing. More research lies in my future.

4. Trim seams/learn finishing techniques. I do trim seams, but sometimes it seems extraneous- well, the most recent fix of the waistband of these jeans was to trim my seams and reduce bulk so that my button hole would install properly*. Finishing techniques, though! I need to learn when to use which techniques, and practice using my serger**.

• french seams!
• bias tape?
• hong kong seam?
• who even knows.

*Ultimately, I think the issue was tension! 

**I got my first real sewing lesson this past weekend, to teach me the basics of using my serger. I'm pretty excited to practice.

So why not quit? 

Because I'm getting something out of the process. Whether it be an acceptable end product, working on skills, or just enjoying the process (or some combination therein). 

How to not quit? 

Put the project aside when it's not working. I paused my jeans project for months at a time, either because it wasn't the highest priority, because I needed to work on my skills or take time to analyze what was/wasn't working, or because I wasn't feeling the project. 

Bite sized goals were also nice. Even I do the same task three times, I get to count it each time, it's a completion of that day's task.

Can I carry those little lessons onto other projects? Probably! Let's try, anyhow.