I’m about to dive into my second evening of hemming the dress. The first night went…not well.
Sort of.
I measured to the desired hem length, marked it all around, and then, scared though I was, cut the fabric. It went pretty well. Then came the hours of back and forth sewing then seam ripping then sewing then seam ripping again. Though I understand how to hem the dress, it turns out it is rather difficult. It also turns out that doing something difficult that I’ve never done before is, in fact, difficult for me.
Sometimes I have this misguided notion that my first try will be perfect. That it needs to be, but also that it will be. I have excelled at a lot of things, had a lot of great first tries at things. So, I expect a lot of things to go that way. That, of course, is not always the case. Sometimes, I really am bad at things. Especially things that are new to me.
I am proud of myself for challenging myself to doing this. I have learned a lot, for sure. At the moment, this learning is coming at the cost of my sanity, but I know that won’t always be true. Someday, I won’t need to look up “Sewing Fails” on Tik Tok to remember that sewing is hard and many others before me have struggled, too, and which will calm me down enough to get me to sleep after experiencing my own fails.
Sometimes this type of throwing-myself-in-the-deep-end skills development is fun, but this time it is purely frustration. It is not at all a good experience, but I know that it will not last forever and I will learn a lot from this experience. The wedding I am attending will still be fun, I will get to celebrate in a beautiful dress, and nobody will be looking at the hem. Tonights frustrations are transient.