Sewing Ambition

Friends, are you ambitious?  With regard to sewing, I mean.

I think all of us want to keep learning more, and it's hard not learn if you take on lots of new projects.  The more you sew, the more you know, right?

I often ask myself what it is I most want to learn.  To be honest, I find the whole sewing thing a bit overwhelming: there's so much to know and it's not always clear to me how best to learn it.  Some people enroll in fashion school or take classes, others buy books, follow video tutorials, etc.  There's a lot out there.

It's frustrating when you want to do something and you don't really know how to do it, or the learning curve seems too steep -- like, for me, Michael's suit or that crinoline I never made a few months ago.

Then there's the sparkly fabric I showed you yesterday.  If I had more than the most elementary draping skills (I can figure out how to hang something off my very approximate-sized body form and that's about it), I would want to use draping methods to create something with it.  Should I just wing it or stick to a commercial pattern?



You know how they say, The more you know, the more you realize how much you don't know?  It's so true!  I think it's important, then, to step back and appreciate the things you do know.  We're all works in progress after all.

For me, sewing has never been about dressing the family on a budget, or finally having clothes that fit me, or becoming the next ___________.  It's been mainly about fun and discovery and experimentation.  That's just the way I am.

Readers, how about you?  Do you harbor sewing ambitions and if so, what are they?

Do you hope to design for others some day, perhaps create your own fashion line?  Do you dream of finally making a perfectly tailored jacket that's as good as anything you'd find in a department store?  Or is your secret fantasy to costume the entire cast of Dancing With the Stars?

What you need to learn to get there, and how are you going to learn it?

(Is it time we all made sewing dream boards? I'm serious!)

Jump in!