Spend All Day Sewing... and Don’t Feel Bad About It!

When I was in the seventh grade, my English class was given an assignment for one evening to write the first draft of some paper – I have completely forgotten what the topic was. I’ve always been a pretty prolific writer so I thought, “This shouldn’t take too long." I’d have plenty of time to do what I really wanted to do first and that was work on this cute stuffed kitty that I’d been dreaming of. I had seen this stuffed animal in a local gift shop, and I had no money, but I did have plenty of felt. Back in those days I was really into making stuffed animals. I already had tons of them so my mother didn’t want to waste (her words, not mine) any more money on more stuffed animals, but she couldn’t stop me from making them! In this case, all I had to do what whip out a quick pattern – I always made mine out of old paper bags – cut out the felt and stitch him up. He was barely 4” tall, how long could this really take? Suffice it to say, it took a while. 

My mom had this annoying grandfather clock on the fireplace mantle, and it kept chiming away as the hours ticked loudly by. I knew it would be dinner soon, I hadn’t finished the kitty and I hadn’t even started on the paper. What to do? I did the only thing that I could: I kept working on the stuffed animal. I can’t remember if I finished the kitty that day or not, but I distinctly remember the creeping sense of guilt I had for not working on the paper. Eventually it became so loud that I had to actually get down to working on the paper. I remember that the paper turned out terrible. Back in those pre-computer days, we were required to write with blue pen on white paper and my paper had scribbles and cross-outs all over it. I was pretty ashamed of how bad it turned out, but it was getting late and I didn’t have time to start over. I comforted myself in the knowledge that this was supposed to be a first draft and I’d have time to redeem myself later in the final draft. Technically, that didn’t work out either because my final draft ended up being so different than the initial draft that my teacher discounted my grade because of that seemingly small fact. I guess the purpose of the assignment was to learn how to write a draft. 

You would think that after this harrowing experience with my seventh-grade English grade on the line I would have learned better than to put work in favor of sewing. I’m proud to say some 40 plus years later I have not. In fact, I have even skipped work in order to finish an important sewing project. That is a topic for another day. All I have to say about it at this point is: you should do what you like and never feel bad about it. Work on the cool sewing project today. Work will always be there for you tomorrow. 

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