When I moved into the house, my mom gave me her old sewing machine. I tentatively and politely took it. I think she envisioned me hemming my own pants and making my own curtains. What actually happened is I stored the machine in the bottom of a closet and started taking my clothes to a tailor. Shortly thereafter, I discovered sewing on scrapbook pages. I’ve never loved to sew (even now, I only tolerate it because the outcome is so pretty), and I’m not very good at it. But I’ve learned a few things to supplement my mediocrity. : )
Go really slow. Every time I call my mom with a, “I’m trying to attach lace…” or “How do I stitch a curve?” or “I want to get it as close to the edge as possible…” she says, “Go really slow.” This is particularly true for curves and circles.
On the rounded edges of the RR3 felt mini album, I actually did about 4 stitches around each corner by putting my needle all the way down, lifting the presser foot, turning the felt a little, and making the next stitch. It wasn’t very tedious, and I didn’t have to rip anything out.
Make it obviously bad. The point of sewing fabric is to hold pieces together. The point of sewing on paper/projects is to be cute. That said, I don’t recommend this method for fabric. But if you have a hard time sewing a straight line, relax a little and don’t sew a straight line. You’ll have to let go of your Type A tendencies a little bit, but if I can do it, anyone can at least try it. [Hey, I can make a messy ponytail now, too. : ) ] I usually make my lines overlap when I do this so that it’s obvious that I can purposefully sew a crooked line, and no one realizes that I can’t purposefully sew a straight line!
Decide that you don’t care (or just don’t look at it). When I started the RR3 album, I decided that the purpose of the album was to 1. Document the weekend; 2. Use felt and ribbon. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time sewing, even though I knew that would be a main element in the album. I guess by “sewing” I mean “redoing.” I decided to sew the ribbons to the album (instead of gluing them). The problem is that you can see the back side of the stitches on the back side of the felt (which doesn’t matter on scrapbook pages since you only look at the top side). This wouldn’t normally be a problem – usually the front looks very similar to the back, so both sides would be fine. However, the tension is messed up on my machine, so when I sew through felt, the back side is ugly. I tried to fix it – no dice! So…just…go with it.
Here’s a question to drive the point home: When I posted the album yesterday, did you notice the terrible stitching? If I hadn’t told you, would you have noticed and judged me for it? (Obviously, I’m banking that your answer to both is an epiphanic “no.”)
Here are some that I’m trying to forget about.
Cover it up. I think it’s well-documented that I’m not a patient person. One thing that burns me up is when I’m sewing a straight line, I’m going really slow, it’s coming out straight, and then my machine misses the perfect 90 degree corner stitch or my page runs into something on my desk that turns it under the needle. There’s no way I’m ripping out the thread and starting over, and sometimes I just want it how I want it (shocker, I know). I don’t want to make it messy or just roll with it. So when I can, I’ll cover it up with a photo or embellishment.