My short answer is no. Picture this: You’re going on a vacation and you want to try to make some new clothes (if not an entire capsule wardrobe) for your trip. The days start passing and you realize your trip is in 3 weeks and you’ve sewn nothing. Time to clear out your calendar and spend every waking moment of your free time frantically putting together vacation looks.
Can you relate? It seems many of us who sew our own clothes have been there at least once. Why do we do this to ourselves?
I recently went on my honeymoon and from the moment we started planning the trip (1 year in advance) I knew that I wanted to make an entire capsule wardrobe for it. I love having a specific reason or occasion to sew for, so this was perfect. However, as my honeymoon inched closer I had a lot of other major things to plan for in my life – my wedding and a cross country move. We spaced our honeymoon out to be 3 months after our wedding, so I figured it would be no problem and I’d have ample time to make clothing.
Fast forward to 2 weeks before the honeymoon and I’ve made nothing. I had been spending most of my sewing time quilting because that’s where I’m finding the most joy lately. Of course, I immediately panic and decide I’m going to try to sew 8 new pieces of clothing within 2 weeks. Miraculously, I was able to get 6 pieces done and most of them turned out great!
Honestly though, those 2 weeks were hellish. I was so stressed about something that really didn’t matter at all. Who cares if I wore something old or store bought on my honeymoon? Was that really going to affect how much fun I had? I had convinced myself that something so arbitrary and meaningless was going to make or break my honeymoon.
I also ended up making sewing mistakes that I would never normally make! You can see in this photo that my skirt isn’t even hemmed! I had totally forgotten to hem it in the chaos that was the week before my honeymoon.
This was not the first time that I have done something like this. I‘ve been the victim of my own ambition many a time (holiday parties, trips, weddings, you name it). It almost always leads to stress. And for what gain? A few cool photos of a shirt I made with an Italian backdrop? Very much not worth it. Getting to torture my husband by having him photograph me all week? Well..maybe slightly worth it. (just kidding)
The whole reason that I ended up in this situation was because for months I had been choosing to spend time quilting instead of sewing clothes. Quilting is where I had been finding the most joy. Instead of just allowing myself to quilt and do what was making me happy, I forced myself to meet an arbitrary unrewarding goal. In the future, I’ll be regularly reminding myself that this is a hobby. If it’s not bringing me joy, it doesn’t need to happen and I’ll probably still have a great time on that trip or at that event wearing something (gasp) store bought.
