The power of sewing

Over the last few months, I have taken to making dresses for India. I've used the Made By Rae Geranium pattern (and if you're not sure what that means, just Pinterest the name!) These have, on the whole, been pretty successful and I've kind of got to the stage where I can put one together in about 2 hours. In a quiet way, I'm fairly proud of these and more than happy for my daughter to wear them. In fact, in a mode quite alien to me, I took India to her nursery summer fair, and was pretty open about the fact that I had made the dress she was wearing (the one in the picture on the top left that she's actually wearing.) 

It was a Liberty fabric that I bought a *long* time ago. And by long, I mean at least 2 years ago. I was always planning to make myself a dress, but I've found that, now I'm confident following the pattern for India, I'd rather make something that I know will get worn. Every time I've tried to make myself something I wear it perhaps once, and then it gets consigned to the wardrobe. I don't know if this is a body image issue, or whether I am too much of a perfectionist and I can see all the flaws glaring out of the dress and then don't want to wear it. Either way, it means I've wasted valuable fabric! 

But... I took the plunge. I'd used about a third of the two metre long fabric for India's dress, but the remains kept staring me in the eyes and I knew that I had to do something for me with this fabric that I have loved (and kept hidden away) for so long. And so. And so I did. I spent an age looking for patterns on the internet but nothing was quite right or not in a pattern size that would fit me. I even asked the girl who runs an AMAZING online shop called Plum And Pigeon if she had any suggestions about what I could use (and she very kindly replied) - but even so, I couldn't find anything that I knew I would wear. And then I thought - I love skirts cut on the bias and I'd seen a 'do it yourself' pattern for a circular skirt that I could, in theory, create myself out of two quarter circles (on folded fabric) - so I took the plunge and did this. And the result is the skirt above. It's NOT perfect, but I finally feel like I've made something that I might wear. My perfectionism (how can I be a perfectionist, I'm so far from perfect) is rife, and there are lots of flaws I could show you, but I'm going to challenge myself to wear it.

Doing something like this for myself is a tough one. It's full of self doubt and concern that I'll fall short of the exacting standards I have of myself. Not to mention the fact that as soon as I put it on I panicked that it made me look lumpy (and don't get me started about the photo of me - I can spot all of *my* imperfections) but I'm going to persevere. Like I said, I'm going to wear it. Heck, I might even wear it tomorrow if the weather's ok. And I'm going to try really hard to swallow the negativity that immediately surrounds my own capabilities and outputs. I posted this picture to Facebook and Instagram and got so many positive comments, maybe I need to challenge myself to 'own it' and even find a little bit of pride in what I'm doing. Sewing is such a positive for me; it's an uphill climb in terms of what I'm capable of, but I feel like it's perhaps having a positive impact on my self-worth. I'm challenging myself and I'm making small steps of progress and perhaps I need to be proud of that as a human characteristic as much as a practical skill.