This one’s personal: Last week I was getting ready to visit my family and wanted to take a present to my lovely mother-in-law. I found a pattern for a simple, reversible bag and decided to make a practice bag or two before using the fabric I’d been saving for her. Each bag was made from two pieces of fabric, each piece was almost 1/2 yard x 42″.
The directions are simple when you know the tricks… but, I had to learn every trick the hard way. I kicked myself several times for being such an amateur.
Over the course of two afternoons I made 8 different bags (there’s just a smidge of the 8th one on the left side of the picture above). While making them I made almost as many mistakes. On two I miss-read the directions for seaming the bottom corners, so those ones don’t stand flat. On two others I forgot to leave an opening in a side seam so the bag could be turned right side out. That problem was solved two different ways – once I seam-ripped an opening, once I put the opening in the bottom seam. On one bag I sewed the bottom seam without re-orienting the bag; I fixed that by cutting the seam off and re-sewing it. My favorite mistake resulted in:
I forgot to cut the “handle” along the fold of the fabric, and solved that by cutting the pieces and re-arranging them, so this bag has both fabrics on both sides… (The bag is actually the same size and shape as the others, though the picture looks different.)
Somewhere in there I made the originally planned bag – with birds on one side and geranium leaves on the other (my mother-in-law is both a birder and a gardener).
As far as I know her bag has none of the “mistakes” the other bags did — but here’s the thing — All the bags turned out nicely, and all the people I gave them to liked them. I learned lots from making them, but I learned even more from making and fixing my mistakes without worrying about them. Each bag ended up looking perfect, with seams and boo boos sealed up inside. I hadn’t planned to make so many bags, or to give them all away, but have now done so joyfully.
Several times I accused myself of being an amateur — but then remembered that the term “amateur” has nothing to do with perfection — it means “one who is a lover of”. I had a blast working on this non-quilt project, and it turned out well. There was no mistake there!
Back soon, Heather!
