Tiny Beautiful Sewing Tips
I love when you ask me questions
My favorite book is Tiny Beautiful Things, a collection of writing from a column called Dear Sugar that Cheryl Strayed wrote for many years. In this advice column, people ask Sugar about seemingly impossible life questions and she answers with humor and a blunt focus on tangible ways they can change their situations.
I first read the book as a closeted, early-twenty-something in Oklahoma. I had a crush on a boy and I was trying to decide if that crush was worth pursuing. If coming out was for me. If I had what it took to be brave. I remember sitting with this book in my hands, and concluding that I was brave enough. That I cared enough about my life to make positive changes for the better. So I started to learn more about who I actually was instead of who I thought people expected me to be. I crushed on boys and I got rejected. I made quilts and clothes and I shared it online. I fell in love. I traveled and moved and hemmed my pants. I released little zines and made little videos and manifested a job out of it all and now I am writing to you with a deep sense of who I am and what I want out of what comes next.
I know that my journey of learning more about myself goes hand in hand with my journey of learning how to sew my own clothes. They are the same path.
I would love to answer your long, rambling, creativity-focused sewing questions! Feel free to comment on this post or email me at tannerfbowen@gmail.com!
Thank you for your readership and your enthusiasm for sewing! I have good, nice, fun plans for this newsletter going into the fall so I would love for you to stick around! As always, physical and digital sewing zines can be found on my site here. I am including a freebie Stitch Length and Tension Guide with each purchase!
Here is a video I made this week that you may have missed that I love:
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How do you cope with the fact that you (me? we?) have more ideas than we will ever have time to create?
I love this! And I have a question..
How do you deal when there’s a gap between what you want to make and your sewing abilities? I don’t have much time to sew at the moment but I do have a lot of time to think about projects. So by the time I actually get to sit down at the sewing machine I have very grand ideas and high expectations. I get so disappointed when projects don’t fit, don’t turn out how I envisioned or are just completely unwearable.
The advice I always hear is to make a toile first which I’ve tried for a few projects but it does mean the whole process takes double the time and can mean more disappointment when there’s still mistakes at the end, even in the good fabric. I just need some ways to keep enjoying the process when the gap between my ideas and skill level seems so big!