I’ve been wanting to sew clothes for years and I just never really got into it or enjoyed it. I’ve made a thing once or twice but it always felt a little stressful. I never liked what I made.
But then some random autumn night last year I was bored of wasting my evenings scrolling on my phone. I wanted to do anything else, regardless of what came out of it. Literally ANYTHING but wasting away online.
I made a shirt from the easiest pattern I could get my hands on. I didn’t really like the style, it was just a plain t-shirt. I didn’t even pick the right fabric for it. It was supposed to be jersey, but I chose some woven cotton because it doesn’t move around, you can sew it with a straight stitch. The finished thing turned out alright, by no means perfect, but it was the first time I felt accomplished sewing something. I was happy and inspired by the result. Even though it was a mediocre make, with plenty of mistakes, and never something I would have picked out in a store, I loved it, simply because I made it.
I made another couple of things like that. I made a skirt that’s the wrong size, it sits too low on my hips than what is intended. I still wear it sometimes. I love it simply because I made it. But it taught me that I don’t have the desire to create tailored items. Sewing them is stressful and I don’t love the way they feel. I need size adjustable. I need oversized, lose, easy, comfy. I always thought I had to make well-fitted advanced garments for me to love them. My perfectionist self whispers in my ear: if it isn’t made exactly to measure what is even the justification of hand making it?
Sewing something simple that works is satisfying. I would rather wear something simple I made, with its imperfections and mistakes, than something tailored I bought. Me from five or even two years ago would never have agreed with that statement. This shift in perspective isn’t a conscious choice, all I can do is observe it happening. It’s interesting.
I made some more boxy woven t-shirts and shirts, and I ventured far out of my comfort zone and knitted a vest (Novice slipover by PetiteKnit). They’re easy patterns for beginners. There is no form fitting. The funny thing is, I have always worn lose and simple things. It’s ALWAYS been what I like. It’s just that I’ve lived in this fantasy of me maybe some day learning to love “fashion” whatever that means. Maybe if I could just find the right thing in the thrift store, or in fast fashion stores, or if I could just sew it……. So I buy these over-engineered items only to default back to my plain old jersey t-shirts. The weird thing is that I have bought boxy white shirts before and not worn them because I felt they didn’t look good on me, because they weren’t fitted. Creating them by hand is what made me accept them into my heart.
Anyway, all of this is to say that this is me officially deciding try this path of lazy sewing since it seems to be working out for me. I have a couple of really cool handwoven fabrics and as anyone in the craft sphere knows, special fabrics need special projects, right? But all I want to do is make the simplest clothes I can find. I want something that I won’t grow out of, that is forgiving so I don’t have to fret about getting the fit right, something that I won’t have to talk myself into wearing.
I have a couple of patterns lined up. Maybe they will work out, maybe they won’t. But I will go into it like I did that first boxy t-shirt I made. An activity away from the glowing rectangle, out there in the physical world.
