Ever since I came to the realization early in the year that it would be too expensive to buy the kind of clothes I wanted for the wedding, I’ve been sewing at every available opportunity.  This has been a fairly immense learning experience, in several ways.

Of course there is the obvious knowledge gained in how to use a sewing machine, and how to cut out patterns.  I knew a bit of that from sewing with my mom and grandma back when I was a kid.  That’s pretty cool, and very necessary, but the really neat part has been learning about how garments are structured, now and in the past.  It’s sort of like architecture that you can wear.  This deeper insight has been a real eye opener, when I started to see the possibilities for altering patterns to get a different result.

I’ve always been fairly artsy-craftsy, but have been decent to good, but definitely not great, at most things (drawing, painting, sculpture, music, etc).  Sewing seems to come a lot more naturally, and I’ve picked it up a lot faster than most other hobbies I’ve tried to pick up.

I’m trying to learn how to make ‘normal’ clothes – things to wear to work, and such.  The main goal there being to realize some actual cost savings and to have things that fit better than store bought.  Really not as much fun, but I’ll stick to it.

What I have really been enjoying is making costumes and more fancy formal-type clothing.  Mostly these have been for the wedding, although I’ve been stewing on a gorgeous purple number in velvet, satin, and pinched taffeta that I’d love to make.

I think sewing appeals to me because it’s so much like sculpture, which I kind of suck at but always wanted to be good at.  I can tell that as I get more and more practice, my mind gets sharper at figuring out how pieces should fit together and what shapes they will make.  It’s really satisfying to go through that process.  Sewing seems to do wonders for my focus and patience too.  Staying calm while having to pick apart seams and then do them over because I was rushing definitely builds the patience, and gives me time to think about paying attention more effectively next time.

The other interesting thing is, I haven’t burned out on this hobby yet, like so many others.  Because of that, I can see all kinds of long term opportunities with the hobby (as I gain enough skills to do them) to make it even more satisfying.  Some things I’ve thought of:

  • Teaching sewing classes for children (my mom and grandma helped me out, and it would be cool to help out others who don’t have family members that sew)
  • Helping folks one-on-one to design and assemble their projects
  • Taking commissions for custom costumes or formal wear (since it’s designing and making the fancy stuff that I like most anyway)
  • Learning to draft patterns myself from scratch
  • Investing in courses on fashion design
  • Learning to do custom hats, shoes, purses, gloves etc
  • Writing tutorials and articles and such
  • Identifying some common/difficult/interesting types of clothing and doing a video walk-through of each project in several short sessions
  • Get all zen and philosophical about sewing, have awesome insights, and share them — like my grandma, only with the internet

Overall, I guess I just would like to continue to get better at sewing, continue to gain such pleasure from it, and share that experience with others so that they can enjoy those same benefits.  There’s just something indescribably awesome about taking a wonderful piece of fabric, and turning it into something wonderful to wear, that makes you feel both pretty and happy at the same time.