To think sewing is pants

[lemisscared]

It has such promise of a relaxing family craft to do together.... sitting blissfully stitching children's toys and crafts on a cold winters day.

Fuck. Off. is it!

It all starts nicely, following the instructions, the felt pieces already cut to shape, its going to be so wonderful. DD impatiently wanting to get started.

So it starts - I have to unravel the thread, I mean, why not just provide the thread ready to go, not wrapped up around itself so that when you try to get the two threads from it, it turns into a fucking ball of hate?

Then you finally get enough thread to start, you try and thread the needle - who the hell invented that??? I can do micro-dissection of a single neuron, but i can't thread a needle without getting the shakes.

I start DD off, its all coming together (sort of) she mithers until i get to a bit that i can hand it over, try to show her to cries of "i know what i'm going" thank all the angels and saints for that i think, but two minutes later, shes knotted it, so sort it, or just pull the fucking thing apart and start the whole sorry thing again - get her started, she pulls the thread, which is now frayed as fuck out of the needle with the microscopic eye.

So do i feel relaxed?? no, i feel homicidal

But at least DD has a bag for her "dog" that we made last christmas before the sewing kit was tidied away hidden at the bottom of her toy shelves.

It promises soooo much, but i hate it, hate it, hate it.

I don't want to hate it, i want to be good at it and make lots of lovely things for friends and family, but well, a crafter i am not!

I feel i have failed as a woman

[GooseRoasties]

Sewing is my worst nightmare... I have a friend who can make beautiful things out of any fabric she touches with a needle... My sewing looks worse than if a 3 year old has done it...

What's even worse is my DP is quite good with the sewing lark, which makes me feel I have also failed as a woman!

[lemisscared]

Glad its not just me, although i did hope for a barrage of posts saying, phew, not just me...........

[Tanith]

Take up Meccano?

[CyclopsBee]

I cant sew or knit, much to DMs disgust!
I can hardly sew on a button without getting the rage
YANBU

[lemisscared]

I can knit, but it all goes to fuck when i have to join stuff together

I quite like the idea of meccanno, i love lego

[Tanith]

Trust me. Meccano is nothing like lego

[Hatespiders]

I think it's lovely that you tried to get your dd sewing. Nowadays it seems to be a lost art. Just after the War, everyone knitted and sewed almost all their own clothes. I knitted myself a scarf at the age of five, and a cardigan when I was nine. I still have my Teddy bear wearing a faded pair of pink trousers I knitted him when I was six. I sewed simple gathered skirts when I was ten.
In case you're doubting me, honestly, this is all quite true! But we were taught from a very young age, at home and at school. And because of that I still knit and sew a great deal, and enjoy it.

Could you start with a much simpler format, say a large piece of binca (that holed stuff) and some bright wools and a huge blunt needle? You can make a pretty table mat with rows of basic stitches, guided by the holes. Just a suggestion!

[stealthsquiggle]

I can sew. And cook. Doesn't mean I can do either with DC, though - it degenerates into me shouting and them stomping off in no time flat - OP your experience sounds positively calm compared to the last time I tried to help DD with something. I am considering posting her to my lovely patient SIL for sewing lessons (she has managed to teach her own DDs) - with DS I have left it to the school, but he is agitating for more sewing machine time. I am thinking of buying a basic machine so that at least I am not worrying about my precious machine instead of as well as my PFB.......

[lemisscared]

Now a sewing machine is a thing of mystery to me! like a whole other world

[Inthedarkaboutfashion]

I love sewing. I use my sewing machine regularly to make unique clothes and nice curtains

[meandjulio]

Lost art?? It's all over the telly!

At school I made an appalling A-line skirt (unfinished), an appalling orange jersey minidress (finished, but only by hemming using the sewing machine which apparently wasn't allowed, and by the time I'd finished it I'd grown so much it looked like a particularly dodgy episode of Minipops), and an appalling shirt (so unfinished that my report was 'Meandjulio has started with great intentions but has achieved very little'.) Not surprisingly I discovered Chelsea Girl and Miss Selfridge like all my friends and put down the needle for good.

Lots and lots of my younger friends (like 20 years younger) have taught themselves to knit, sew, crochet etc, they all make lovely things. Much better to do it for love than just because you are a girl at school.

[RaisingSteam]

Sewing is my only real skill. Teaching it to DC is a WHOLE other matter though. IMO a lot of sewing "Kits" are not as easy as they are marketed though. Binca fabric definitely good to get used to handling needle and thread. My mum started me off when I was about 5, she must have been desperate to keep me quiet.

[Hatespiders]

All over the telly? That explains why i didn't know the art hasn't been lost. I don't watch much TV!

[Arlagirl]

I hate it.
I am not in the least bit crafty.
I paid someone to sew name tags in dcs uniform.

Luckily a good friend is a seamstress and sews all my buttons on for me.

[JimmyCorkhill]

A child's sewing kit is probably impossible for anyone to use. We had the joy of a 'make your own doll' kit. The needle was made from plastic with a rounded tip (for safety). No way on this earth would it go through the fabric. I made the whole bloody thing as it was so awkward then DD (quite rightly) pulled it all apart. Then we binned it

Don't get me started on those awful craft kits full of pom poms and lollypop sticks SIL buys for DD for EVERY present. You can't make anything at all from them. I'm going to save them up to regift to her DD (that is soooo ungrateful )

You can get those kits with the holes for sewing already punched through the fabric.

[Selvedge]

Thread your needle and knot the two ends of the thread together. Needle cannot fall off. Make a tiny stitch and pass the needle back through the loop by the knot. Thread will not come out. Now enjoy sewing!

[arthriticToes]

lemisscared if you can do microdissection of neurons, using a sewing machine yourself is completely trivial, particularly if you work from a pattern on not-too-fiddly fabric. I am making curtains for our house... and crikey it's just a bit easier than using an eppendorf micromanipulation system to pick single cells for genomics... .

Hating trivial boring dysfunctional examples of hand-sewing doesn't mean you have failed as a woman. You can be a perfect model mother to your DD when she is slightly older, in successfully showing her how to sew usefully and functionally, using a sewing machine. None of this stupid kiddy sewing kit shite. That's a leftover from the days when kid's stuff was only unimaginative and trivial copying of what mummy did cleaning the house. You wouldn't give your kid a dysfunctional child-sized dustpan and brush to play with... and probably wouldn't give her a dysfunctional kiddy computer (particularly as kids these days know more about computers than most of us). You might, however, give your kid a go on a normal computer or microscope when she's a bit older. Treat sewing the same way as computers and microscopes.

[arthriticToes]

Hmm. Of course, this assumes that by sewing, you're thinking "making things that are functional" as opposed to teaching her embroidery, cross-stitch, tapestry etc. I'd forgotten about those... to me embroidery is sewing on buttons and doing buttonholes as I have never had any arty creative leanings whatsoever...

[lemisscared]

I was joking about the failed as a woman thing been a long time since I've manipulated any genomes either

[Vanillepudding]

Oh Lem, sewing with children, no no no.

I'm ok with a needle and sewing machine, made my LO an Elsa dress which still holds together after one week.

But I would never attempt to do it with them. And they have never asked, thankfully.

[arthriticToes]

hehe. So was I, kind of. But still, using complicated fine-scale bits of high-precision equipment to fiddle with unpredictable bastarding tiny bits of bloody biology isn't a skill you forget. Sewing machines are like wheeling shopping trolleys in comparison...

[Orangeanddemons]

I bloody love sewing. I can knit, crochet and sew anything. I can even make my own patterns I find it really soothing and calming! and always have something on the go. I get quite depressed if I'm not doing something.

I also teach textiles all day too. They kids love it as well.

[TakemedowntoPotatoCity]

God no it's deathly boring. And I am useless at it, much to the chagrin of DM who believes it a necessity when you have kids.

I can do the bitchin', but not the stitchin'.