Quick selfie for Me May May yesterday. I was wearing one of the very first successful t-shirts I ever made, a Greenstyle Centerfield Raglan sewn from seemingly indestructible space dye knit. I think it’s about 4 years old, but it barely has any signs of wear at all. This was the first knit shirt I ever made with a neckband that set in correctly.
A Month of Clothing Philosophy — Part Four
Beginner’s Mind
I’ve been sewing for many years, but I’m still learning new skills. For instance, I only started sewing with knit fabrics about 5 years ago or so. For all of my fearlessness in my teen years, knits were the one thing that stumped me — and before the magic of the internet, I had no idea where to turn for advice. There weren’t sewing blogs or YouTube tutorials, and (believe it or not) my main sewing reference was a vintage book I found in a thrift shop: McCall’s Complete Book of Dressmaking, copyright 1951.
So I knew how to make fancy bound buttonholes like a high end tailor, but had no idea how to make a simple t-shirt.
Knits really are more difficult to deal with than woven fabrics in some respects. They’re easier to sew with specialized equipment, and although you can sew them on a regular sewing machine, you still need special needles and sometimes a walking foot attachment — and not all sewing machines have settings flexible enough to sew knits without stretching them out.
Still, perseverance and practice go a long way towards mastery, even when your tools aren’t perfect.
My first several knit projects were abject failures, but my only regret is that I wasted so much fabric. I’m not ashamed of those early efforts. I practiced and let myself fail and eventually I got the hang of it. Even now my knit garments are far from perfect, but they’re good enough to wear — and that’s enough for me.
I took a kind of sewing hiatus for several years in the early 2000s. I was working multiple jobs, and had almost no free time. Aside from the occasional hem or pair of pajama pants, I didn’t sew much at all. When I took up sewing again, I was a much different shape and size than I had been. I had been a standard misses size when I was a teen and younger adult, and clothes in the late 1980s and early 1990s tended to be loose and somewhat boxy, anyway. I never needed to make many changes to make my sewing projects fit. I discovered that I couldn’t just pick a size from my measurements, blend to a larger size at the hips, and expect it to fit any longer. What worked for a size 12 trapeze dress in 1993 did not work for a size 20 fitted sundress in 2007. I had to learn a whole range of pattern adjustments, and I’m still learning new ones even now. But the result is so satisfying. I may have more work upfront than I used to, but in the end I have garments that fit better than ready to wear ever does. All of that time spent, even the frustration of the learning curve — it’s all worth it in the end.
There are so many other things I have yet to try, too. I’ve never made a winter coat or jeans — and I’ve just started a Craftsy class in pattern drafting for perfectly fitting underpants. (Can you imagine?) I could go into how learning new things can help to expand neural networks in the brain, and can contribute to a protective sort of neuroplasticity, but keeping a beginner’s mind can simply be satisfying in and of itself.