I MADE THE PANTS. If you've been here a bit, you know that I tried to use these cute capri pants from a 15 year old commercial pattern as a great sewing lesson for my daughter and a project we could work on together. That didn't work out so well.
I'm not sure if you're all Mary Poppins practically perfect at sewing and quilting, but as many years as I've been doing this and as many bazillion projects as I've done, nothing ever goes completely to plan.
It may have to do with the fact that I am often finishing just moments before some grand deadline like Halloween trick or treating is going to start in 10 minutes, it's Christmas morning at 3am so Santa needs to get a wiggle on, or there's an international flight leaving with us on it at 8pm, so these pants need to happen or not.
When I teach classes, I can't tell you how often I hear people concerned with their (amazing) work - beginners, intermediates, advanced - SO. MANY. PEOPLE. Something's off kilter, something needed ripping and redoing so you can see a smidge of where it once was, something isn't exactly perfectly even from one side to the next like you'd see if it were made by a robot.
Quilts you can fudge. Did you screw up some measurements and it came out too small? Throw a border on it. Did you flip a part of a block? Call it a seek-and-find design element. It just gives it a little something extra.
Clothes get a little tricky because they go on your body! Someone is going to wear this around all day and it needs to look good and feel good and stay together. Especially stay together.
But you know, I'm going to tell you something. It still doesn't need to be perfect.
These pants were comfy and cute in Salzburg, and she didn't even mind that the top snap fell off (whose idea was it to include hammering in sewing, I don't even know).
She wore them on a gondola and through the streets of Venice, not caring even a little that the stitching was a little wonky and white since I ran out of khaki thread.
She wore them hanging off the side of an alp and on a playground below it, and did not mind a bit that I accidentally did the zipper top stitching backward.
She was comfortable and happy in the exact kind of pants she wanted - everywhere from Liechtenstein to Disneyland Paris, and do you know how many people stopped her to say that her back pockets were completely uneven and weird? No one. Not a single person.
I am the weirdo who is going to forever look through our trip pictures and say as we go country to country to country "I MADE THOSE PANTS!"
Every time they were clean, she picked them! In lots of places, through lots of traveling, these were her favorite bottoms. I couldn't fix the snap until we were home, and even now it's holding on with a wing and a prayer. But every time she can pick them, she picks them.
She loves her perfect imperfect pants so much she's asked me to make the next size up. I heard that traveling makes you grow, but I think she's taken it too literally and is about an inch bigger already.
Life goes too fast to worry about whether your 1/4 is perfectly scant or your back pockets are identical twins. Wear the pants. Add a border to your quilt. It's perfect just the way it is.
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Maddie
July 10, 2022
Life does indeed go to fast- loved your story. It reminds us “not to sweat the small stuff” in life. You brought tears to my eyes!