holli

I do not have a working sewing machine. This is not stopping me from making an Adipose baby out of polarfleece. It is going to be *adorable*.

Does anyone else find handwork to be much better stress relief than machine-assisted crafting? The only exception for me is my spinning wheel. If we measure relaxation on a scale of one to purring cat, that thing rates a couple of tabbies at least.

(I would sort of like a working sewing machine, though.)

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From:

arliss

I hand-sewed microcheck gingham outfits--bloomer suit in blue for the boy and matching skirted dress, both with lots of gathers stitched onto long-sleeved bodices, in red for the girl, and matching pilgrim bonnets--for 9-inch jointed baby dolls. Plus sewn-on-the-doll union suits, since their hard plastic bellies were so round elastic couldn't keep underpants up. By kerosene lamp. During a blackout due to hurricane.

So, yes?

From:

holli

Uh, I am a little bit in awe now.

From:

arliss

Well, OCD, and avoidance by over-focus on detail. Not a good quality to have, but occasionally useful.

I have an adversarial relationship with sewing machines: the cast metal portable Singer I had in my twenties, my mom's cabinet Necchi, and the Featherweight I have now. It's a given that for every yard I sew by machine, I rip out two feet. I just factor in the time and aggravation. Not...that it cuts down on the swearing. The hand-sewing I could control, which is why it was soothing.

The things I hand-sewed tended to be doll clothes, millinery, costume embellishment (I plotzed over your bustle!), or quilt, cloth dolls and doll clothing, vintage ladies' and babies' clothing restoration, and were more interesting, challenging, and rewarding than machine-sewn stuff.

When I made batiste and eyelet petticoats as holiday and birthday gifts for most of the women of my acquaintance, and designed and made lined tarot bags, the fun aspects were deciding how many tiers in the petticoat, beading or not, if beading, what color ribbon to thread, matching ribbon roses or not, pintucks or none, how many rows of ruffled eyelet and how wide should each be, and eyelet or cotton lace inserts or not? The machine sewing was necessary fighting with the machine to get the thing put together.

The tarot (or gift, depending on size) bags were fun to select color and pattern and then find a lining fabric that pulled out a detail color rather than a boring complement, and braided satin cord that also picked out a lesser color. Again with the sewing part being not the fun part.

So yeah, I found hand-sewing absorbing and fun, NSM machine sewing.

Oops. Sorry for the long.

Edited Date: 2011-01-29 10:48 pm (UTC)

From:

holli

Don't be sorry! That was fascinating.

From:

rydra_wong

I love handsewing! I've never tried machine sewing, but I find making lots and lots of tiny stitches by hand is very soothing for my brain.

(May I commend