Human or just plain stupid?

For a very long time my sewing consisted of making clothes – for myself, for my children when they were young, for their rather tall father, for friends and other family members. I made dresses, skirts, trousers, shirts, tailored jackets, knitwear and anything else anyone needed – I can boast that there was great attention to detail, the finish was excellent, so the garments fitted well and looked great. I ceased this useful sewing when my children wanted to wear jeans or trendy named gear, and I had an income that made it easier to purchase what was needed. Since then sewing has focussed on all forms of needlework and quilting – for fun and enjoyment.

Recently I have had the urge to sew for myself again, so yesterday cut out a shirt, thinking it would be quick and simple, a good place to practice my rusty skills before trying something a bit more complicated. After all, it must be like riding a bicycle, one never really forgets and all is fine after a little practice. Today, as it is cold and wet, and I ache from too much gardening earlier in the week, I began to sew. Intending to do it properly, I even unearthed and re-threaded the 25 year old overlocker which is tedious and fiddly because as usual, it had black spools on it, when I needed white.

I proceeded to sew, confident that it was going well, overlocked the internal seams before doing collar and sleeves and then happened to notice the shoulder pleats were going in the wrong direction and were in different places! No idea how that happened as I had carefully tailor tacked, marked and pinned before I began. Easy to fix I thought – just undo the seam and flip them over. Wrong! Not enough fabric because of the shape it had been in the first place, and then because it had been trimmed by the overlocker, there was even less. I could not see a way out of this mess, and feeling very cross with myself consigned the whole thing to the rubbish bin in time for tomorrow's collection. I'm just glad that the fabric was not the lovely Liberty my daughter found for me some time back.