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

5foot5 - maybe you needed a different style of learning?

Are you perhaps left handed? Or do you learn something better if its written down and you can read it rather than visualising someone doing it?

Everyone learns better in a particular style, it might just be that your sisters and your mum learn the same way, which is different to you. So you were always able to learn, they just weren't the ones to teach you, it needed to be done in a different way.

inthedark, can you really make clothes cheaper than in the shops? that's a real skill - how?

Yes, local market sells fabrics at £2-£3 a metre and I only need 2 metres for most dresses. Thread costs £1.50 (I only use guttermann). Zips cost me £1 for 3 or 50p each for invisible zips.
Ebay also has some cheap but reasonable quality fabrics.
I could probably match the cost of making a garment with primark reduced prices but the quality and choice and fit would be far superior if I made something myself.

YANBU sewing is definitely pants.

Sewing pants, however, is worse.

I can and do sew. Has saved me a lot over the years but not if I thoght about it in terms of the hours involved. I'd love to be able to knit but never got the hang of it...

Mimishimi - there is an English knitting style which is different to a Continental knitting style.

With the English your left hand does the work, moving the yarn around the needle, with the continental your right hand, with the needle, loops the yarn and pulls it through.

Try both and see which feels more natural. Plenty of YouTube clips on them.