Patience, Grasshopper

This weekend, while Dan is again working at Karra (he'll be done by Christmas), I'm going to do some sewing.

I've been doing a little lately, not huge amounts due to The Exhaustion - but a bit.

A couple of weekends ago, my friend Aisling came around for what we dubbed 'Grandma Day'. She brought her machine, I fired up my machine and we got busy sewing away on the back deck.

Well, we sat there and chatted while sporadically stopping to swear at our work, our clumsiness and our chosen hobby.

"Why did I not take up whittling instead," I cursed to the heavens, after sewing bias binding onto the wrong side of my fabric.

What I've realised since I decided to learn how to sew 1.5 years ago is how much harder it is than it looks. Who knows, whittling probably is too. Maybe all hobbies are, perhaps that's the point of them.

This top here? This is probably the first piece of clothing I've made that I will actually wear. I made it from my own pattern, no less. I'm pretty proud of that.

I've also made a few bags I use, a few cushion covers and altered a few pants and skirts. Successfully, I mean. My sewing room is full of aborted projects, abandoned after the sixth attempt at unpicking a seam finally destroyed the fabric beyond redemption.

They say practice makes perfect. And I'm practicing, I really am. But I'm still a long way from competent, let alone perfect.

Patience, Grasshopper...