Anniversary thoughts

I have now, as of September, been costuming for 10 years. At the start of the year, when I finished my Eowyn costume, I found myself reassessing my hobby. The last few things I’ve made I have been really happy with and proud of what I’ve achieved but they still weren’t as good as I wanted. I am aware that nothing ever will be – but, while over the last 10 years I’ve watched my standard of work constantly improve, at the beginning of this year it seemed to have plateaued.

I’ve felt a need to ‘level up’ my sewing before. At the first Jane Austen festival I went to I was inspired by the quality of the other costumer’s work, including these two bloggers. After that I started doing little things, like pressing seams during construction, which add so much to the final look of a garment and my quality of work improved significantly in that period.

One of my favourite things about costuming is the constant learning. With every costume you have to acquire new skills and improve your techniques. But at the start of this year it seemed to me that I was no longer doing that. My work was good but I consistently had fitting problems. I was also taking too much time and too many mock-ups to create a pattern through a guess and check method. I was sure there were better ways to do things but I seemed to have reached the limit of what I could teach myself. “I’ll just have to give it up” I thought to myself. I don’t think I ever seriously considered that – I love sewing too much – but I needed to find away to continue to improve.

These are my planned projects (subject to change at any time, etc) that I’m excited to keep improving my skills with:

At the same time, people were beginning to ask me to give them lessons or make costumes for them. Lessons were a bit awkward because while I definitely can sew I don’t have any verified techniques or knowledge to pass on. Commissioned work also posed a problem because while I didn’t want to work for free I also wasn’t comfortable with charging by the hour when I was using techniques that were inefficient timewise. I also didn’t want to charge a lot for work that wasn’t finished in a professional manner. Which, given the time cost to me that a commission represents, made significant projects for others not something I could do.

I have not done any sewing for a few months. But this is not despair – it is hope! In July I enrolled in sewing lessons but they didn’t start until the end of September so I decided to put off all projects until after the lessons so that I could use my new skills to make my costumes as good as possible. (It was also really convenient – I spent that time either being sick or desperately trying to catch up on uni because I had been sick, and benefited from not having my brain trying to figure out a sewing project as well.)

I have been excitedly looking forward to the course since I enrolled, greatly confusing everyone I told about it who all looked weirdly at me and said ‘but you can already sew’. But I knew I would learn better, more effective ways to sew and I couldn’t wait. I am starting in the beginner class but that doesn’t mean it’s all easy or just going over things I know. It’s ‘beginner’ - not as in simplified but as in these are the proper, professional foundational techniques that you need to know first, before you learn the other ones. I’m nearly finished the first class in the series and I have learned so much. I’ve also bought so much – the first lesson was on useful tools.

Loot!