So about Sewing

I lied the other day, I didn't mean to, it just slipped out, but it was a lie and it'll remain a lie. I plagiarised Mum's sewing abilities. Ok so I didn't so much copy, as take the credit for her work. She made me this amazing Dr Seuss strapless dress (I did buy the fabric and pic the dress style but the patterning, sewing and amazingness was all hers.) A fellow apartment dweller commented on it positively, and without thinking I took it. I mean who doesn't want to be thought of as talented.

The truth is I'm an average sewer. The reason is simple, I'm just not good at following orders. When the teacher said colour between the lines, I scribbled over the whole page. When the art teacher said the sky had to be blue, I painted a rainbow (or at least I envisage my 5 year old self doing something so bold when really I probably just chewed on the paint brush.) When I cook, recipes are for inspiration only. This 'method' good for something like a stew, where you can slowly mould it into deliciousness, but this laissez-faire attitude does not mesh well with baking. Get your macaron mix a couple of grams out and your mouth-meltingly delicious almond meringue treats are ploppy messes.

The same goes for sewing. You can't just whack a few bits of fabric together and say yep, that'll do. You can't cut a few centimetres off and then magically make your patchwork quilt fit. But at the present, I persist with my stubborn self-taughtedness and the result is some charming, but kinda mediocre pressies for friends. The fabric is amazing, and I'm great with colour and from afar these things look good, but up close it's sewfail central.

But just as my lovely mother put my out of the lines artwork up on her fridge, and I hung her out to dry when her fanstactically intricate wearable artwork was wrongfully attributed to me, I am going to put my creations up on display.

There are the bags:

The aprons, well ok one apron in a photo, but I've made others:

And the patchwork pieces, which will one day make a whole quilt.

A few of these have been given as gifts already and the recievers were wonderfully gracious. I wonder if they'll be so happy when the shoddy sewing gives way and their shopping ends up all over the concrete of the Vic Markets.

Ok maybe I'm selling myself short, these are pretty, and kind, and handy, personalised gifts. Though I don't think anyone will claim my sewing as their own handiwork soon.