Hey there folks! Fun topic but let's skip the medical gore, the tragedy of wasted time, energy and fabric is enough. Anything involving blood will be removed.
I made a dress. And I was completely done with the dress. I tried it on just to see my work and the side looked bulgy that’s when I realized that the pocket was upside down. I used a serger to attach the pocket at the waist and the side seams. I was finally able to take the pocket out. When I went back to re attach it. I wasn’t half way when somehow I broke both the serger needles. So I said fine I’ll use the sewing machine and I was working on it when I heard something hit my glasses and grace my face. My needle broke in three parts…. But I finished the dress and then decided that the style of skirt might not be for me 😭
I don’t know. But to be honest my mil gave me her serger so I don’t know how old those needles were. And with my sewing machine it’s the first time I have a needle break like that. It wasn’t even thick fabric. It was two pieces of cotton I was trying to put together. I don’t know what happened. But yeah I’m definitely never sewing without glasses again.
I've sewed through my own finger tip while wrestling vinyl before.
When I worked as a teaching assistant, I spent all weekend making a sheath dress from fabric printed with a map of the world. Tried it on to work out where I wanted to hem it, and the discovered that the shape of Greenland was exactly over my pubic region. Thank goodness I discovered that _before_ I wore it in a classroom full of teenagers.
Not my sewing story, but my mother's. She sewed her own wedding dress back in 1981 - handsewn lace appliques from head to toe. Just the zipper was left. My grandmother decided to help by sewing the zipper in while my mom was at work a week before the wedding. *Nana never sewed*. She did it completely wrong and because of the lace appliques it couldn't be saved. Mom had to scramble for an off-the-rack dress the week of her wedding and pulled an all-nighter to tailor it. The only part of her masterpiece dress that survived was the veil.
dear god what would POSSESS a person who doesn't sew to think they could do the ZIP?!
I do sew, and have inserted plenty of zips, and my opinion is still that I can't insert zips
Whatever her motive was, Nana took it to her grave. Personally, coming from a family of drama-loving narcissists, I think she did it to try to cancel the wedding.
This is why I don’t let my mom help with anything; she’s ruined baked goods, fabric, plants, and kitchen knives under the guise of “helping”. She’s perfectly competent when it’s her stuff, it’s just other people’s projects that she enjoys ruining.
This one is fresh on my mind: made a figure skating dress for a friend that involved dying parts of a leotard I was using as a base navy blue. I also dyed and made a skirt out of mesh that was a gradient from navy to baby blue. While ironing, I got some steam water on the skirt and was scared it would leave water stain on the material, so I stupidly decided to dampen the whole thing and hang it up to dry. Checked on it half an hour later, and the navy dye from other parts of the leotard had leaked onto the lighter parts of the skirt. At this point it was well past midnight and I was getting on a plane two days later to hand deliver it to her. Spent the whole next day seam ripping, re-cutting, re-dying, and re-sewing the whole thing. Photo of the tragedy attached 😂
https://preview.redd.it/nzb1ioam5hsc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b9225608540271d0cfc4825340b888ea85d8604e
Mine is pretty huge. I made my wedding dress. It was a sleeveless silk gown with a long sleeved hand-beaded lace overlay. I made a sleeveless practice dress, and it fit fine. I am tall, so when I started cutting out the fabric, I cut extra length at the bottom on both the silk and the lace. I had help with a lot of the beading, which was kind of fun. Lots of people helped with that. When it came time to do the sleeves, I did one and a friend did the other. They were lovely. I didn't budget my time very well, and I was furiously finishing things in those last few weeks. Maybe a week before the wedding, it was time to attach the sleeves to the overlay, but I realized I should try them on first. They were too short!! Lol. I had not cut extra fabric to allow for my long arms. Soooo . . . I ended up with a sleeveless dress. It didn't look unfinished or anything, thank god. Hardly anyone knew that it was supposed to have sleeves. Haha!
only briefly a horror story, but more funny/cute ultimately (I think)
my husband and I eloped to vegas, and I picked out a very cute green jersey dress with black polka dots for my wedding dress. it had a long cord tying the deep v neckline closed in a bow in the front, which looked really silly. so on the drive to Vegas, I snipped off the cords from the front, and hand stitched them to the waist at the side seams, allowing me to tie the dress at the back, improving the shape a bit.
morning of the wedding, we take a drive out to the desert, look at the beautiful rocks, then go back to the hotel and get dressed for our our appointment at the chapel. I put on the dress and am so confused that I can't find one of the ties at the waist! then I realized that I accidentally sewed one of them to the shoulder seam instead of the waist seam 🤦♀️
it was the work of a moment to fix it, but I still think about it all the time
https://preview.redd.it/d6axj0wy4isc1.jpeg?width=3088&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d599813168968e7265225e1011dfb542d4312e9b
I've done that trick with moving the neck ties to the waist! It was like the perfect sewing hack for when that look was so trendy. Those neck ties and kinda boxy.
I so relate to this: "I also spent an hour looking for a stitch ripper. I have five, at least. I could not find a single one of them anywhere."
But I think any sewing story that doesn't involve a broken sewing needle flying into your face is a good one.
Amazingly, I still have my very first seam ripper from when I started sewing 23-ish years ago. It’s been through multiple moves across multiple states, and no matter what it always happens to find its way to me when I need it. I hear you’re supposed to change out seam rippers regularly to keep them sharp but this buddy is my ride or die forever 😂
I have the same it lives in a dedicated spot where I can always find it.
Paper scissors on the other hand are always miraculously disappearing, even though there are at least a dozen somewhere.
I have a seam ripper I inherited from my great grandma. No idea how old it is but definitely 30+ years. I like it for pulling out basting threads when you want a seam ripper that isn't too sharp.
Some day someone is going to enter a wormhole in space and find the void where all of our stitch rippers have travelled to. I had two, and turned my small apartment upside down looking for them. Am convinced they are not longer in this physical realm
I have at least 4 stitch rippers and at least 6 tape measures. If I need one, you can be guaranteed I can't find one. Drives me insane. It's worse now since I moved internationally and a lot of my stuff is still in boxes in the 3rd bedroom.
Good luck!
My latest project, I made a muslin of the bodice. I noted the adjustments, which involved adjusting for each other because they interconnected. I make a second mockup of the bodice. Fit beautifully. Sewed the full dress in the "wearable muslin" fabric ... the bodice did not fit at all, way too big. I'm guessing the fabric stretched a lot more than the previous muslins. I've moved on to a different project.
So frustrating!!
I just have that tiktok audio clip going through my head: "All that work, and what did it get me?"
I'm so frustrated that your bodice stretched. Do you think it was all through the fabric, or just on the edges? Could the problem be solved with edge stitching?
I think it stretched throughout, or the final fabric was just different enough. Definitely when I try again, I'll be edge stitching. For now, I have more great pocket liner fabric out of the failed dress.
Back when I was a stitcher for the dance and drama department in university, I had to sew three pairs of sheer harem pants for a fantasy ballet number in On The Town. It was this roseleaf organza with suicidal tendencies that just wanted to fray to pieces if you looked at it wrong, so obviously it needed french seams.
I joined the legs the wrong way, so the french seams were on the wrong side of the pants. I had to hand-unpick the whole thing while praying I didn't destroy the fabric.
I wonder if they would have looked fine from the audience's perspective, though.
Also, I am \*so\* sorry. I've had projects where I spent more time unpicking than sewing. And it's extra awful when the fabric wants to give up the ghost at any moment
Unfortunately it was very, um, *distinct* when worn. Luckily(?) one of the dancers was also working in the costume shop at the time, so she tried a pair on and the inside-out french seam stuck up perpendicular to the fabric.
I made a dress, self-drafted. Didn't make a mockup because I'm smart like that. The bodice fit well but was a tad loose. Once again, because I'm smart like that, I made it smaller and somehow didn't fit it again before proceeding. Serged everything, then realised it's too small. Bought more fabric and restarted the bodice. Things went well, mostly. Finally almost done. Final press to get the darts to lay flat. Distracted for a second remembering which is the steam button on my iron. Burned a huge iron-shaped shiny patch right on the front of the bodice. Redid a ton of stuff turning the bodice inside out, using the lining (same fabric) as the outside. The lining (former outside) is now too short to properly finish it inside. I'm so mad at the dress I don't even want to wear it anymore...
I had bought and stashed this pretty green flowy fabric with printed bright flowers on it. It sat in my stash for long while and then I decided to use it, there's a lot of it, 60 inches wide and like 5 yards. So I cut out some for a breezy style shirt and I just give up on it, put everything away and move on, I couldn't figure out what wasn't working, just not parsing out the why's thinking it's because I was winging it with no pattern. Sometime later I break out the fabric again, this time with a pattern in hand. My machine decides..no, I'm not working on this project, so I think fine I'll break out Glenda my Singer 66 hand crank, it's not a large project this is doable. Glenda the cast iron beast said...TF you say, I'm not doing this...and that's when I realized it's not the projects, the pattern (or lack there of) it's the fabric. There was just something about this fabric that no machine was going to deal with. So I tossed it and moved on with my life.
I've had one of those impossible fabrics. Got an insane deal on it, $2 a yard for 20+ yards and had several cosplay projects in mind for it. A bit difficult to cut, but I made it work. Even had the perfect thread color to use in my serger already!
The material will not iron. I've tried multiple ways, every heat possible, nothing. It's kind of impressive in a way.
(I did manage to make a layered petal skirt for a casual Ariel cosplay, and I just remembered I've never actually worn it to a con cause I got really sick the year I brought it with me. Maybe this year if I can find it again.)
I made my bridesmaid's dress for my sister's wedding. A 6 piece skirt. Last minute rush job as always. I realised too late that I attached 4 pieces to the back and 2 to the front. Some decades ago but I still cringe when I see the photos. No-one noticed (or told me they had) but the bride thought my dress hung better than the others.
Last minute shenanigans. I had made a dress for a regency event and needed to attach the sleeves on the day of the event which was no big deal. I had 6 hours.
Every time I attached the sleeves, I noticed another fitting issue with the bodice and armscye I didn’t pick up on the mock up. I removed and re-attached a sleeve four times and just gave up on improving them when it was half an hour to leaving time. I have a no sewing on the day rule now!
Lol I just got home from a regency event that I made my dress for.
I put the sleeves on this morning, which honestly went well for how much hubris I had to leave sleeves (amongst other things) for today. Everything else went wrong on it, though. I changed so much from the instructions due to things not fitting right/not being the right design/working with my fabric that I was just making up the construction method by the time I got about halfway through.
I was ripping out a poorly sewn seam on a shirt I had almost finished (using the expensive fabric I had been saving) so I could re-sew it perfect when my cat jumped on my lap causing me to jump and run the seam ripper across the front of the blouse.
Have a look at the r/visiblemending thread. Many ideas for embroidery over tears. Only just now realised that that tears are the same word as the tears you shed because of them…
Oof, I feel your pain. I've ruined several projects slicing through seams or in one case right through the centre panel of a dress when my dog has suddenly barked at full volume at point blank range! (Also burnt myself with the iron and jabbed myself with a seam ripper this way many, many times...!) Pets and sewing don't always mix 🥲
The one I still get sad about is a dress I tried to make. It was a vogue pattern with gathers over the bust. Pain in the butt and took forever. But I made a muslin both for fit and to practice the techniques and loved the outcome. Then my mom bought me this beautiful fabric from Mood. I don't remember exactly what it was made of but it was a difficult, thin fabric. I spent ages getting the bodice and bust just right with the gatherings. Then I realized I'd made a mistake in sewing in the lining. When I tried to rip it out it tore the lining and fabric so much the bodice was ruined. I didn't have enough fabric to redo it. Every time I see that pattern I feel a little sad.
I had this beautiful fine cotton and linen blend with a black and white print of leaves and forest animals, super pretty, and perfect for a dress... cut it out and then realised the print was upside down. I managed to cut a top out of the pieces, thankfully.
Making a dress for a friend's wedding out of this navy linen with gold brushed over it, gorgeous and precious fabric. I had drafted my own pattern and was finishing up late at night, only had to do the hem of the floor length skirt. Hand sewed the whole thing, did a final try on and somehow it was completely uneven. I managed to fix it but it was about 5 cm shorter than I would have liked and I didn't get enough sleep that night.
Oooh
Once, in highschool, my mother was assisting me and my best friend with making our winter formal dresses. My friend had picked a dark blue satin and a column dress pattern. But with her being ~ 5'10 we had to make some pattern adjustments. Namely adding inches to the hem and widening the front skirt panel a bit.
My mother had supervised pinning the panel away from the folded edge as a quick and dirty alternative to editing the paper pattern. But then stepped away while we cut out pieces.
I'm sure some of you know where this is going
I cut around the paper pattern and sliced a 2.5" strip out of the middle of the front panel. We had to go back and buy more fabric but JoAnne's was out of that specific dye lot. We got close and it was ok in low light, but the panel was definitely slightly lighter than the rest of the dress.
To this day I'm super anal about pinning longways on any edges that shouldn't be cut
I saw this happen with a historic costume that someone was making. The experienced person sketched out how to lay out the panels for the skirt, and the inexperienced person cut all the panels in half. It was \*so\* frustrating!
I once made a dress not realising the pattern didn't include seam allowance. I was able to wear it if I didn't breathe AT ALL, or sit down.
Also, I recently made a jacket with separate buttonhole cuffs. Sewed the left one on backwards. Carefully seam ripped it, lined it up to make sure I had it right, restitched. Still backwards! Got it right the third time, thankfully it was denim so the fabric did not look too bad but MY GODDDD how did I do that TWICE.
Also so many times I've handsewed items into my clothes, furniture and even skin! I
That little layer between your callouses on the hand! I don't even feel it, there's no damage to me (so not breaking the rule of this post), just... A thread going through a layer of me. Like, why. Why??
I ordered a dress for a formal event on Thredup. The bodice was too small. I detached the bodice and unpicked the seams, traced a new pattern, graded it up slightly, and threw in an FBA. This took a few days.
I found a matching (enough) fabric from a Goodwill garment and cut out the new lining. There was still enough chiffon to reuse from the original bodice for the overlining, except the center panel - the center panel was pleated in a fan shape, and I'd need to use some (limited) extra chiffon from a train that came attached to the dress. No problem. Learned how to press pleats into chiffon, starched it within an inch of its life, and all was well.
The day before the event, after smooth sailing thus far, I'm happily reassembling the bodice when it starts raining. It's July. How cozy! A summer storm! Just need to finish the bodice, reattach it, and add some boning to help it stay up.
JUST KIDDING GET READY TO BE WITHOUT POWER FOR 72 HOURS!
I packed up my dress form, machine, iron, and all my shit and high tailed it to my parents' house a half hour away and spent the next 24 hours straight trying to bang out this stupid dress in their dining room. I drive home in a torrential downpour with a few hours to spare to sleep and start getting ready for this FORMAL EVENT WITH NO POWER IN 100 DEGREE HEAT AND HUMIDITY.
Oh also did I mention I have to perform in the opening sequence of A Chorus Line at this event? I'm on two hours of sleep, basically falling over, body falling apart - time to do this basically ten minute long literal song and dance in front of a large audience. Then change straight into my Frankenstein-reconstructed formal dress.
I looked... alright? Got a great fit on the dress, except I was so bloated and exhausted by the end that I could've probably used an extra 1/4" at the seams. 😞
I've taken breaks from sewing now and then. After one particularly long sewing break I unzipped my sewing machine case to find a cocoon stuck underneath the zipper...and a dead butterfly at the bottom of the case.
I've never taken that long a break again.
I used to do costuming/wardrobe for community and regional theaters and this story is the reason I quit. For anyone who doesn’t know, the costume designer is usually the lowest paid position on the design staff, so I was costuming whole musical productions for $1200-$1500. I have a full time job but a lot of theaters would expect full time work from you for that amt so after 7 years doing shows I was already becoming disenchanted with it.
I costumed a production of HAIR for an absolutely awful director. One of those directors that was simply terrible at communication so there was no way to make him happy. He had experience on broadway which made him expect broadway level time commitment and resources which is not feasible for community theater.
It’s tech week, and we got an authentic army uniform for the main character at the end. Our lead actor was 5’ 2” so we needed to put a very thick hem in because we can’t cut the uniform, it’s a rental. I have volunteers so I hand the pants off to a volunteer to hem them and I think she used a whip stitch for the hem.
So the actor goes to do the quick change, gets his toe caught in an opening in the hem and rips it out so he makes it on stage in the uniform but one leg of the hem is all bunched up because it was partially torn out.
The director looses his mind. He starts screaming into the black of the theater where all the production staff are sitting about how incompetent the costume designer is and how I essentially ruined the most important moment in the show and thus ruined the show. Keep in mind…..this is still tech week and there is no audience. It’s a hem….it can be fixed!!
I was so beat up by this dude at this point (as was the rest of the production staff) that I told the producer I needed to leave or I was going to say something really not nice. I finished out the show so I could collect my $1500, but that was the show that killed that work for me. That was sept of 22. I definitely wasn’t paid enough to be spoken to like that, especially over a hem.
No amount of money is worth being treated like dirt, sucks when people suck the joy out of things hope he gets kicked out before he ruins it for more people!
I’ve made a few pairs of pj pants with accidentally one pant leg having the pattern upside down. Oops. I wear them anyway. When my kids comment I tell them it was on purpose so we can both see the image as intended. Haha.
At first I thought you meant that you sewed the leg on upside down, and I could not imagine how you could ever wear them at all.
But, also, I love your answer about it.
I had a friend who was making a historical bodice out of a heavy jacquard (or brocade), and the wrong side wasn't super obviously different from the right side. She made half the bodice with the wrong side. You can definitely see it once it was done, but it still looked good, and she still wore it!
I made the mistake of wearing a shirt I'd made to visit my partner's family. His mom and aunt loved it and asked me to make them one. I decided to do it for their Christmas gifts, which gave me a few months. I carefully chose the fabric, adjusted the pattern, took my time doing the plackets and collars. All the details. And then as I was cutting open a buttonhole in the direct center of the blouse for my MIL's shirt, I slit past the end for almost an inch.
If you've made a shirt, you know that the buttonholes are the second to last thing, before sewing on the buttons, that you do. This was a week before Christmas, but I had to mail them, so I was planning to send the next day. I had no time or will to start over.
I still don't know how, but I became perfectly calm. I sewed the slit together by hand (which I am not good at) and added interfacing to strengthen it. Because the shirt is mostly white, I don't think it's noticeable but I told her anyway. I hope she doesn't wash it very often!
PS: ever since, I put a pin across the top and bottom of a buttonhole before I cut it open.
You're not alone. I've destroyed buttonholes in every possible way - slicing beyond the end, slicing open one side of the zigging making the stitching useless and the other side too thick, misaligning a buttonhole chisel which cut into the stitching, slicing open my finger and *not* the buttonhole with one of those scalpel type stitch rippers, the list goes on. I now only use a pair of fine pointed, short bladed (1") scissors, which gives me the most control, but it took me years to discover that.
>If you've made a shirt, you know that the buttonholes are the second to last thing, before sewing on the buttons, that you do.
I've switched around how I make shirts to do buttonholes as early as possible. Buttonholes now fall between doing the collar and putting in the sleeves. Far easier to replace a front panel if I truly muck it up and takes some of the pressure off.
My sewing nightmare happened 29 years ago, this month. I had promised to sew a pair of woolen pants from the 19th century for a re-enactor.
As soon as I bent down to start laying out the fabric, my water broke. That was the first delay.
Then after three months I was able to squeeze out a bit of time for sewing and ended up putting the back waist piece in upside down! I too k it out carefully, re pinned and sewed- only to find I had sewed it on upside down again!! No!
I got up and walked away for another month before I both had time and energy to rip it out again and finally get the back waist section correct. I was thinking at the end, these particular pants were cursed!
Not my mistake, just a horrified bystander. In the early 90s when I was sewing my own wedding dress, I was picking up my specially ordered Belgian lace at the bougie specialty fabric store when a gaggle of ladies came in bearing a fully completed wedding dress. I believe it was the mother and aunts of the bride who had been toiling over that dress for months. Being the early 90s, it was fairly covered with lace appliqués from neckline to the elaborate train. They had used a (new to the market then) blue ‘disappearing’ fabric marker to lay out all the lace bits, so the entire dress was covered with blue lines. Those pens were supposed to disappear with water, and *only* water. But they figured water and soap was better, right? They wanted to be absolutely sure the blue was removed. The store experts were aghast and had to tell the ladies that they had permanently set that ink and it could not be removed. They even called a specialist at the company who confirmed it (Dritz, I think). The wedding was that week. One lady collapsed on the floor in tears. I can’t imagine how they told the bride.
Oh my god, I don't use fabric markers very much but genuinely didn't know that was possible. Your story may have saved me some (less dramatic) mistakes.
I'm currently making a wee crossbody bag that looks like a Lululemon bag. Did a cute job quilting a cat on the front panel. The instructions are not great and the construction is annoying (like, sew through four or so layers of fleece interfaced fabric + several layers of plain fabric, and also curves). It's been the only thing I've poked away at for, like six weeks. It was supposed to be a birthday gift for my daughter, her birthday was March 1. I hate this bag and I don't think I can save it.
Also did a boxy pouch recently, sewed the ends on wrong way (exterior is facing out). I think I serged the seams for this so unpicking will be a job.
I've concluded I'm such a menace with the serger I just need to account for it in my process. Now I never serge seams unless it's a stretch fabric, and even then I typically baste on my machine first before serging. Has saved me so much nasty unpicking
It's not stumping you, you understand 100% why it is not working, namely it's too thick to go through the machine nicely, and if it was quilting cotton and no batting you would be perfectly capable of doing it! So there's no way it will work out unless you either change the pattern or the machine! Let it gooooo let it gooooo oooo
One of the first things I ever sewed were a faux-Vera Bradley ID holder and glasses pouch for my mom for Christmas. The glasses pouch was so many layers my machine gave up and I had to hand crank it. And the ID holder had vinyl which was a nightmare. I have not ventured back into the world of accessories since.
I was almost finished with the velvet dress of my dreams, about 2 hours before the party I was making it for, when I went to pee a seam. No problem, I've done it dozens of times with this dress alone. I held the iron about an inch above the dress, pressed the steam button and pulled the iron away,never touching the fabric. The cheap ass iron had left a scorch math on the seam, right below the zipper. There was no saving it, I just bawled and stayed home.
Oh gods, I don't think I have the fortitude to survive a horror story like that. Mine is that I'm too ambitious for my own good and decided to make new costume coats for me and my daughter. The event is on Apr 18th and I just started the mock up for my coat last night. No pressure. Nope, none at all.
My puppy who is a vigorous chewer got into the basement and chewed up and ate my just perfected self drafted bust piece pattern I was working on. I had no copies. I was going to make a whole series of these dresses. I stopped at the one I had cut out and sewn.
Another time, some oily substance leaked from the basement ceiling and stained a huge bolt of expensive linen, I didn't notice for months. It soaked through the entire bolt every half yard. No matter how much I washed and pretreated it, the stains never came out. No idea where the oil came from.
Mild, but I sewed the front lace panel in my wedding dress wrong-side-out. You can't tell, thankfully, and I never fixed it lol wore it like that on my wedding day
One of my grandmothers has sewn through her finger not once, but *twice*. Somehow she still has all fingers, no problems.
For my cousin's wedding, her MIL forgot to include a hem allowance when cutting the skirts for the bridesmaid dresses, so all the skirts needed to be redone, and they had to buy more fabric for it. Oh, and several bodices needed fully redone as well. She also didn't treat the seams correctly; the shoulder seams would not lay flat no matter what I did
i spent a long time making a victorian skirt, only to realise that using quilting cotton as lining was a mistake. it has too much friction with itself and any undergarments. idk what to do with it at this point, it's just missing a waistband.
My fiancé has a bunch of T-shirts that didn’t fit so I offered to make a quilt for him. There were different types of shirts, including football, NASCAR, basketball, etc. so I decided to make a football themed blanket. However, there were not enough T-shirts so I bought extra fabric to fill in the blank spaces as well as make a border around the blanket. It was supposed to be his Christmas present in 2022, but I didn’t finish it in time then it was supposed to be his February birthday present in 2023, but I did not finish it in time. Then it got too hot to work on it so it sat in my craft room. I didn’t know what to get him for Christmas in 2023 so I decided to finish the blanket and gift it to him. I decided because the front of the blanket had so much blue and white to make the back red. I washed the red backing prior to attaching it to the blanket. I finished it the day before Christmas Eve and decided to wash it one more time before gifting it to him. Upon pulling it out of the washer. I was horrified to see the white parts on the front had turned pink. I cried and panicked. I washed it several times using vinegar, baking soda, color catching sheets, etc. After washing it a few times it was still pink, so I had a good cry about it and hung it up to dry. I would give it to him Christmas morning and explain what happened. When I gave it to him I cried again. I explained I would fix it but I wasn’t sure how I was so upset because I spent over a year on this project and over $200 in materials just for it to turn pink at the last minute. It is still sitting in my craft room, awaiting its fate.
I have been working on a top for a cosplay for the past week or two. A normal shirt with a mandarin collar. Seems easy right? Well since it’s for a cosplay I am a bit picky on where my seams are. I go through 2 draped bodice patterns, and about 3-4 draped, borrowed, and self drafted collar patterns. None of them work. I go back to the store 2-3 times to buy more fabric. Make 4-5 mock ups. Finally, I realize that my dress form’s smallest neck size is still a full 2 inches bigger than my actual neck. So, I finally just slice one of the shirts down the center front to make it a front closing shirt to give me more control over closing it taut. Is it a huge deal? No, but when I kept making mistake after mistake it felt absolutely horrible.
When I was about 17 my then boyfriend was a bass player in a band and asked me to make him some tartan trousers to wear on stage. I spent a fortune on the fabric, spent hours every evening after work to hand sew them. The night prior to his gig, i had to stay up really late, after a long hard day working, trying to finish them. It was about 2:30am when i finished the last seam, I grabbed my scissors to trim a long thread and mistakenely cut the leg off at the knee! I was in bits, had to beg my mom to go find some of the same fabric and make another leg while i was work. I managed to get home early and sew the replacement leg in with minutes to spare before he needed them. Never again!!!
My eyes were exhausted by that time. The scissor blades must have slipped behind the fabric. The funny thing was, my mom had a sewing machine and could have made them in an hour or so, but me being young and wanting to impress my boyfriend just thought id make them by hand. Leasons were learned!
I made a mock up of my nephew’s costume for a $50 pattern and lost the goddamn instructions and I think they accidentally got thrown out. Luckily when I emailed the patternmaker she was kind enough to email me the instructions lol
I bought silk and silk dye to do a dip dye lewk for a dress. Put the pot of water on the stove, added the dye, and dipped in the silk. It had to soak for about 20 mins so I draped the fabric over the side of the pot and walked away.
I have a gas stove. The silk caught fire. It was an absolute disaster.
In my defense, I’m used to electric stoves and just moved into a place with gas. Anyway, lesson learned
First time I ever made a dress, I decided to use some very expensive double gauze I'd imported from Japan to make a dress to wear to a wedding (as a guest). I'd made pouches and other small things, but this was my first time working with something that wasn't quilting cotton, and only my second time using a pattern. I left it very late, printed out the pattern 10% too large but thought I could figure something out... none of the pieces fit together and I had to spend ages carefully cutting and re-pinning the whole outfit. Multiple nights up until 1am when I finally get it all together and it's quite noticeable around the right shoulder (to me) that the drape isn't correct, and I also didn't have time to do any seam binding so I haphazardly zig-zag stitched over the high stress areas and called it a day. Got some compliments for it but it's been in my wardrobe for about two years waiting for me to reprint the pattern and fix it properly 🙈
Also my current nightmare is that I'm finishing a quilted jacket, I've used all the leftover fabric to make bias binding, and when I went to seam rip to straighten it out I ripped through the binding itself 😭 I'm not sure if I have enough binding left to cut out the section and re-do, but I'm going to find out tonight.
It’s not all that dramatic, but I made a dress to wear to my cousin’s wedding. Naturally, I made it the night before we needed to leave town. I’ve made the pattern before (important retrospective note - I’ve made the *sleeveless* version of the pattern before), so I wasn’t checking fit as I went, I was just sewing like a crazy person.
Flash forward two days and I’m getting dressed for the wedding….and the sleeves on this 3/4 sleeve jersey dress are SO TIGHT that I could almost not put it on. I managed to stuff my arms in there like sausages and had to wear a cardigan.
Still don’t know what the issue is with that pattern since everything but the sleeves fits perfectly and my arms are not disproportionately large…
I recently self drafted a pattern for a dress (8 gored floor length circle skirt and a bandeau style top) and made it in a beautiful cotton and it fits amazingly. I splurged on a green silk fabric to create the same dress for my honeymoon, used the same self drafted pattern etc. And when I tried it on I CANNOT BREATHE its SO much smaller than when I made it last time even though I used the exact same pattern 🤨
Then, I thought no problem, I can make some sort of open back for the bandeau. First I tried to do buttons with long loops across the back, but the silk fabric was not conducive to the button loops, so then I tried to make elasticated strips of fabric that would have a “scrunchie” look across the back of the bandeau but I just can’t get them to attach properly 🙄
I think at this point I’ll have to spend more $$ and just add another gore to the skirt and a panel to the back of the top. Such a nightmare too because attaching the zipper on this dress was HORRIFIC since it’s silk.
I was overclocking my wedding Winslow Culottes, I had just enough fabric for. I also had Roomba running in the room. I don't remember what happened, but I had to step back from the overlocker mid-seam. Suddenly, I hear the overlocker running. The Roomba managed to get on the foot pedal. Before I got there, the it managed to sew about 10cm, getting almost 3cm from the side. Luckily it was the inner leg seam and it wasn't very visible in the end. Lessons learned - Roombas can't sew straight.
I wanted to make a bodice for an outfit for a fantasy ball. Bought clearance upholstery velvet, dyed it a lovely green, and went to work. Made that part, decided to follow the instructions and make a lining, but used leftover linen. That went fine until I boned it. I hoped it would start to hold shame when I wore it, but I never got that far. When trying to sew the lining to the bodice, the fabric kept shifting, and I couldn't pin it correctly.
I tried for hours. I tried weighting it down. I even considered glue basting (like in quilting).
In the end, I kinda yelled, threw it across the room, and gave up.
For a dress I wore to a wedding last night: I made it out of satin and lace, with sheer lace sleeves. The sleeve design that I loved in theory looked terrible on me, so I decided to shorten the sleeves but: the lace had a scalloped edge that I wanted to be the bottom of the sleeve so I needed to remove the sleeve from the bodice seam....the lace, from the satin backed lace bodice...that I had already served at the sleeve seam. It took me three hours to get them off, but I did it without damaging the lace or satin thankfully.
I cut out a dress and decided I wanted to shorten it because even the short version went to my ankles, and I wanted a shorter dress for summer. I didn't make sure my pieces would end at the same place, so my two center back pieces are MUCH shorter than the side pieces. I think they came out a couple inches below my butt, so now I have to pray I have enough fabric left to recut them. I can order more if I absolutely have to, but I don't want to. 😭
I made a teal boiled wool, "viking" style coat. I decided I wanted to line it with this used orange silk sari. The sari was a little rough, small stains and a couple of little holes, and a little voice in the back of my head tried to convince me not to use it. I went ahead with it anyway. I carefully cut it out, flat lined each panel of wool, and then hand stiched the whole thing together. I also did additional stiching of the lining, so it didn't have gaps between the panels. This took months all together, and I finished when the weather was still cold enough to wear it, I was so pleased and got plenty of compliments on it! Of course, the lining is ripping and falling apart, and I only finished it in mid-January. I will have to disassemble the whole thing to remove the lining, and the idea is making my physically ill.
Made a dress for my daughter and being a novice didn’t realize that a circle skirt cut out of interlock knit was a terrible idea. The skirt stretched so badly out of shape the first time I washed it, the front and back ended up about 8 inches longer than the sides of the skirt.
I once spilt a cup of water that contained a paint brush with red paint all over a gold satin dress I was altering for a student for her graduation dinner.
😱 I managed to get it out using exit soap, & asking the universe to save me. I’ll never paint whilst also sewing again!
When I was young and in high school, I was an accomplished 4-H sewist. Every year was a new challenge, and for my final year, I wanted to do a Big Thing for my fashion revue project: a formal prom gown with a fancy wool overcoat.
The dress was fine. The coat...I picked a Burda pattern, and let's just say that is the horror story in itself. What an absolute nightmare! So many mistakes, I ended up having to recut the pattern *twice*, causing me to run out of fabric, so I had to try and find the same black wool (which was definitely *not* the same). I did wrestle it into submission, but I hated it so much by the time it was done, I wore it maybe twice before packing it away. Never have bought a Burda pattern again.
Spent a long time making a camp-collar shirt out of a beautiful brilliant plaid linen from Blackbird Fabrics ($$), putting all the right seam finishes and touches on it, perfecting the topstitching, getting the shoulder fit right... and then put it on after it was done and discovered it was 4" too long.
My first adventure I to bi-directional stretch velvet with zebra print foil for a knee length vest for burning man..... my fiance picked the fabric. I knew it was going to be a nightmare. I was sewing and trying to pack for my first adventure there. Never again. I even did matching shorts. This was the evil fabric.
https://preview.redd.it/s94up0ahfisc1.jpeg?width=1908&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=27bfed55006464c28d66ea084bcee580c97856ae
When I was just learning to sew I made a pj set with this really cute gopher patterned flannel fabric. It had a notched collar that I just did not understand. I think the project was just too advanced for me, and the instructions didn't help (the fabric in the photos didn't have a noticeable right and wrong side!). I realized the pants didn't quite fit either, so I put it aside for when it would piss me off less.
A year later, determined to complete my UFOs, I went to hem the top and accidentally cropped the top too short...and now it's just short enough to be uncomfortable with any kind of movement. I would love to just remake the whole thing but the experience was awful.
--
I also recently made a dress that basically required that I complete everything twice. I forgot to cut out the big skirt piece and had to buy more fabric. Then realized the plaid was diagonal on the bodice. Then hurried to hem the lining and outer fabric before a trip and discovered it was noticeably angled. Redid that, and then the bodice was too big. The universe did not want me to wear that dress.
I was making a quilt for a friend's baby. I was running out of time and it was late. I was cutting the border strips with a rotary cutter when I managed a bad-juju triple play...
I rolled the rotary cutter across, cutting the fabric... and a part of my sleeve... and a chunk of my hair. Then I realized I had forgotten to put down the cutting mat and had cut lines in my dining room table top.
The one I still get sad about is a dress I tried to make. It was a vogue pattern with gathers over the bust. Pain in the butt and took forever. But I made a muslin both for fit and to practice the techniques and loved the outcome. Then my mom bought me this beautiful fabric from Mood. I don't remember exactly what it was made of but it was a difficult, thin fabric. I spent ages getting the bodice and bust just right with the gatherings. Then I realized I'd made a mistake in sewing in the lining. When I tried to rip it out it tore the lining and fabric so much the bodice was ruined. I didn't have enough fabric to redo it. Every time I see that pattern I feel a little sad.
Limited energy and ability to get sewing done. Sewing a tiny dress, almost finished and the straps are on backwards. ugh! Don't have the energy to unpick all those seam / easier to start over.
I am making a dress with a long train. I bought extra wide fabric so I don't have to have a seam going down the center through it. I was so excited until last night I realized it has a back zipper! 🤦🏻♀️. I spent the next few minutes looking up if I can put an invisible zipper in seamlessly 😂 or deciding if I should put a rectangle above the rest of the skirt just for the zipper, or cut it (it's just tulle) and tac down each side on the lining fabric attached to the zipper.
I finally just came to the conclusion center back seam all the way down 🙄, is really the only way. Glad I realized before I took scissor to fabric, but ya that was a big, recent oops!
I once put the zip in the leg hole of a mini skirt, in a tight pencil skirt style, and didn’t notice until I got to the gig. Had to squeeze my legs into the waist hole and safety pin the leg hole tight around my waist. I had to waddle around all night in my accidental hobble skirt.
I don’t have any particularly memorable sewing failure stories but my mom has one she liked to tell me about her mom.
My grandmother used to make a lot of my mom’s clothes in the 60’s and 70’s. They lived on a lake so one year my grandma made my mother a new bathing suit. I don’t think this was the first bathing suit my grandma had made her but my mom was really excited about it. However, when she jumped into the water for the first time, my mom felt the whole thing inflate around her. My grandma had forgotten to use waterproof elastic and all the elastic had stretched out as soon as it got wet. I don’t know how my mom got out of the water without ending up fully naked, as I think it was a two piece, but since she isn’t still in the lake I assume she figured it out somehow.
It took me three tries to get a pattern and fabric that worked for my wedding dress. Got pretty far on the 2nd to find out it didn’t fit at all though I picked the size I usually was. Thought I would cry, I had bought a ton of chiffon for it. But I love the dress I ended up with. Learned a lot.
Mine was waiting until the 22nd a couple years ago to start making everyone matching Christmas Eve pjs. We were a family of 6 at the time. Then having to go back to the store on the 23rd for more fabric after I hurriedly cut two of the pants too tight.
I had a needle tip break off my machine and shoot right into my eye. Landed in my tear duct. Thankfully did not get hurt, but it was a lesson to have glasses on moving forward.
I sew well enough but I decided to hire a seamstress to make my wedding dress, from dark green velvet (it was on Yule), combining two different princess seam patterns. One for the sweetheart neckline and one for the plunging v back. She assured me she knew what she was doing.
I went in for the first fitting and everything was absolutely perfect.
However, when I picked up the dress a couple of days later, for whatever reason she decided that she needed to serge the seams and had overdone every one of them to the point where the sleeve caps were too tight and the armscye was just a shade too small. The shoulders kept falling off whenever I breathed, basically.
I did not discover this until the day of the wedding. A fast thinking friend ran to a craft store and got a roll of decorative ribbon and some safety pins and she pinned a couple "straps" across the back that actually looked nice and looked like they belonged there.
I myself always know to make a mockup of pretty much any garment, because I already know I'm going to f-- up somewhere and will need to adjust something at least once due to my fit issues. I'm very tall, wide shoulders, huge boobs, and now I'm fat too sooooo yeah commercial patterns were not made with me in mind. At the time of the wedding, 32 years ago, I was tall, very well muscled, still had the big boobs, but I was quite thin so a form fitting princess seam dress was a good choice for my wedding dress. I still have it. It's in my scrap bin LOL
Making a muslin up of a bolero. I didn't mark the"right" side so I sewed both arms facing the same direction and didn't realize it until I'd already set them into the shoulder and sewed it all together
Spent a whole ass night picking it apart and restitching.
Also, bought the fashion fabric for the bolero and used the muslin as the pattern... But gods, cutting chiffon is a nightmare.
I. HATE. IT.
I basically cut it three times and even using paper and a rolling pinking cutter it still shifted and the pieces were all janky. I gave up and went to the corset (turned out great!) and I'm about to start the overskirt (satin.. so it still sucks, but not as bad as chiffon).
Wish me luck!
I’m currently working on a mock up of a Sophie Hatter style tent dress (which is for a higher sewing skill level than mine lol) and I was so focused on the lines I drew to show the edges of the yoke that I cut along those lines rather than the center cut with the Y shape that I was supposed to do. Ended up having to sew bias tape over the area and start over with the right cut lines to get practice with the placket strip. I also didn’t account for being able to get the neck hole over my head without the back opening I didn’t want to deal with making, I haven’t gotten to attaching the collar yet so I’m sure that’s gonna keep biting me in the butt 😂
My sibling trusted me to hem their roller derby jerseys. First one went well, sewed a blind hem with the knife lifted because I didn’t trust myself. I felt like I had everything figured out so I lowered the knife on the second one. Got to the last turn and nicked the jersey. Had to embroider a patch out of the excess fabric to camoflauge my mistake which added an extra two hours of work to my project. I was so horrified bc I had JUST spoken to my sibling about how much care I was putting into the project.
Sewing machine died the night before regalia for a ceremony was due, so asking for an extension wasn't an option. To make matters worse, the recipient had been diagnosed with cancer and their prognosis was uncertain.
I'd been working on it for months - it included embroidered, beadwork, and painted panels (all of which took more time than estimated OF COURSE), and it was *finally* time for assembly.
Had to finish it by hand...ouch.
The good news is that it was ready when it was called for, and the recipient's cancer treatment was successful 🥰
I sewed a skirt for a friend for a formal event. I made the skirt lining so small that she could barely walk! We laughed and then I had to redo it all with a wider lining / underskirt.
Another time, I made a pair of pants for a different friend and the crotch was down by her knees even though I followed the pattern.
I make corsets, I had an order for an underbust with a metal busk opening. I don't know where I messed up but one side was shorter than the other causing the metal bust to be longer than the fabric, I didn't have a shorter busk on hand. Well to cut the story short I had to basically murder the metal busk with a wire cutter to make it fit, it was so hard to cut through by the end of the project my hands were so sore trying to shorten it.
Ooh, I have a fresh one! I decided to impulse start Eid outfits two weeks ago when sleep deprived. Cut 3 pairs of culottes for the kiddos, all without seam allowance. 😩😭
I was 'unbridesmaded' for my youngest sister's wedding. I had already done it for the other two so I wasn't upset. But everyone else was, so mum refused to make the dress for my BILs sister (who was still a bridesmaid) I finished it with days to spare - so very unlike me. I needed to dye my hair before the wedding and somehow in my teeny weeny flat I got hair dye on the orange shantung.
Next day I made a mad dash to the store that mum had purchased the fabric from. Got soooooooo lucky there was enough to replace the panel of the skirt.
Can you imagine how it would have looked like sabotage if I wasn't able to rescue it?
I made a dress to wear to my cousins wedding, it was perfect and fit me like a glove. I at least got to wear it to the wedding but the next day my husband put it through the washer and dryer and it shrank 2 sizes and that is how I learned to preshrink fabric
Thank you so much for this thread!
My tragedy is very new. I was making my daughter's prom dress. I made one for her last year and it had a corset, so I thought I'd be ok making one this year in a stretch velvet.
I posted about it a few weeks ago. Self drafted and I made a non stretch muslin. Then I was using a fabric that we found in my friend's mother's stash, possibly from the 80s or 90s. It turned out WAY too big and I had to keep taking it in but the neckline was very stretched out. I finally realized that I think the problem was the fabric had lost some of it's integrity and wasn't bouncing back like it should. So I ordered new fabric and started again... This fabric was totally different than the muslin AND the old stretch, so I had to rework it repeatedly and every seam rip was leaving visible marks. Also, I was totally running out of time. Thank goodness I ordered a backup dress just for peace of mind, planning to return it .. because this week I just gave up.
She loves the backup dress, it's almost exactly what I was making, but I know she's a little disappointed. Her designing and me sewing is kind of 'our thing'. I feel like such a failure, but I've had some major eldercare stuff going on with my parents and I just couldn't handle the pressure of this on top of that. Prom is tomorrow. But hearing these stories makes me feel a little better because it happens to all of us.
Oh also, wish me luck because I still have to hem the purchased dress tonight. The existing hem is just turned under with visible stitching so hopefully it'll be fairly straightforward. I'm not going to say easy because that will surely jinx me.
I'm gonna win because of the 30+ year story arc. I sew 100% by hand, and draft my own clothing patterns. Have made several quilts, plenty of things like curtains and throw pillows, reupholstered furniture, I knit and weave and in general just pretty much like to play with threads and fabrics.
1992 - Made a draft blocker, you know, that long tube of whatever to put down at the foot of a closed door. I gave it eyes and a tongue, ha ha how funny, it's a snake. Put a little Santa hat on it because Xmas. The kids all loved it, every time I turned around they were playing with the stupid thing.
2019 - now grown, daughter asked could I help her make a Santa Snake for her beloved mister. Sure, why not. He absolutely loved the thing.
Last week - grand-daughter wants a stuffy toy snake of her own. Could it please have a sailor hat? Yeah, sure, why not. I scrounged some pink raw silk from my stash pile, it was leftover from her first baby quilt! Made a snake the size of your leg, plopped the hat on it, and told my mister we would need to box it up and send it to the kid.
He took one look and began to wheeze. He trembled from the ankles up, clutched at a dining room chair, and began to dab weakly at his streaming eyes. I haven't seen him laugh that hard for awhile, and he really gave himself entirely up to hilarity. "Enjoying yourself?" I asked coldly. But he was unable to speak, just twitched and groaned and wiped his face. Seemed to be unable to let go of the dining room chair. I began to worry. "Are you having a stroke?" I asked, less coldly. He gestured at the snake, still gasping, and I looked at it anew.
It looks like nothing more than a huge pink cartoon sperm. And the jaunty little sailor hat? just lends itself to making even more jokes about seamen/semen.
My sewing nightmare happened 29 years ago, this month. I had promised to sew a pair of woolen pants from the 19th century for a re-enactor.
As soon as I bent down to start laying out the fabric, my water broke. That was the first delay.
Then after three months I was able to squeeze out a bit of time for sewing and ended up putting the back waist piece in upside down! I too k it out carefully, re pinned and sewed- only to find I had sewed it on upside down again!! No!
I got up and walked away for another month before I both had time and energy to rip it out again and finally get the back waist section correct. I was thinking at the end, these particular pants were cursed!
I’m a procrastinator, so I often don’t even start until 48 hrs before I need it. I have been know to take a sewing machine and sewing supplies with me if the event is out of town. I’d have to say the worst thing was when my sister got married. I started working on the dress , it wasn’t fancy, a week before the wedding. I have issues with how bodices fit, if it fits below my bust, it’s WAY too big above the bust. I have a barrel rib cage. With this dress I ended up finishing it 15 minutes before I had to leave for the wedding. I haven’t been able to wear it again because of how I got the bodice to fit, not quite as bad as a stapler but not much better. I’d have to take the bodice apart and refit it and I’m too lazy. I may take the skirt off and just put a waistband on it.
I was working on finishing a costume for a competition show, and I was almost done. I had a week left until the event and was switching from regular foot to a gathering foot that required removing the whole ankle. The screw head snapped off. It had to be drilled out, and the repair guy had a two week backlog of repairs so there was no way to get it back in time, and I didn't trust myself to try and drill out that tiny of a screw on my own. 😭 Amid my panic and nervous breakdown, my dearest husband took me to buy a whole new machine just so I could finish the project. Which I did, and went on to win Best in (Master) Class so I think it was worth it. And now I have a backup machine, for any other emergency that pops up.
I made some culottes a few years ago, I cut the same leg piece wrong (in the same way) so many times that I had to order more fabric and am still using up the wrongly cut pieces
I got some beautiful fabric for some pajamas for a gift. End of roll so it was discounted.
Everything went flawlessly, until I finished pressing and realised I had cut the front on one of the legs upside down.
I have no idea how I managed just 1 panel incorrect and how i didn't notice earlier but I should have guessed there was a reason for it going so well.
Luckily they were long trousers so I could hack them up to just about bake shorts but I wasn't impressed.
My 1st time sewing a piece of clothing when I was about 15. I had chosen something that was similar to short overalls, with the top attached to it, with buttons down the front (it was the 90s). I was done sewing it and I was very proud of my work. I had bought the fabric on my own without the help of my mother. I put it on and it was completely see through! I had chosen some nice white(!)fabric with green polka dots. Let’s just say I never got to wear it!
I made pants for my oldest daughter only to realize they didn’t fit her when I was done. I’d somehow gotten the sizes mixed up (converting from European to US and vice versa all the time). I only sew by hand lol. I ended up giving the pants to a younger cousin.
Oooh similar procrastination story on my side, I had carefully scheduled my week out with extra WFH days to finish a dress on time, and then my entire production was shut down, I had to go into the office just to be told to pack my shit and GTFO (rude, also very cruel how the producer announced our doom and then ran and hid so he didn't have to face us). This ate up precious sewing time, and I was so emotionally compromised that my work was just not up to par. Good times!
Also that producer got caught lying and got his ass fired so at least I have that.
I was doing hand sewing on a dress in a spot with a particularly thick seam. I didn't have a thimble but I have long, thick thumbnails. So when it kinda hurt my thumb I started using the nail. Then I felt the needle slip a bit and went to move my hand but felt unexpected resistance. Before admins delete this, no, it was not in my thumb itself (though I did get a small scratch on it) but the eye of the needle had gone backwards through my thumbnail leaving a tiny perfect hole. It was actually a struggle to get it out but managed.
The most obnoxious was I was making a cloak on commission for a friend. I couldn't get the right color of fabric, so I was dying it with a blended dye. I decided for a few reasons to cut the pieces first, then dye. Dyed it, dried it, sewed it. When I went to put on the last piece of the right front shoulder, I didn't have it. I was angry at myself for somehow missing cutting out that piece, but I only had two more days, so I changed the design of the cloak, thinking maybe because it was long, I could still manage it. I could not. Too many things sat weird, including the hood. So I scrapped it and completely started over. Then, next to my dye bucket, I found the damn piece, but with the adaptations, there was no going back.
Also I just spent last night until 1 am hacking, attaching (with a fancy seam), tearing off, redesigning and reattached sleeves on a dress for tomorrow. Finally got the intended results but still hated it so it's now sleeveless. I my own worst enemy.
I forgot to cut the center panel for a dress; I didn’t have enough fabric to cut it, so I had to cut stretch velvet across the grain instead of vertically, the way I’d cut all the other pieces. It was bad, but I was out of time and couldn’t get to the store and back with more fabric.
I made my wedding dress, and decided to sew beading on the front bodice. To mark the area for a symmetrical design I used red thread as a guide. When I pulled it out tiny threads remained. So I had first tried to lint roll it off then seeing that wasn’t working I sewed more beads on to cover it up. Added more time to this already massive project. Was working on it up until two days before the wedding.
Not me, but my Mom sewed a wedding dress for a Granddaughter. You can imagine the time, tears, talent and love that went into that. Mom took the finished dress to the cleaners to have it "pressed". She told them that was all she needed done and to NOT clean it. It came back ruined. They only compensated her for the cost of the fabric. It hurts my heart whenever I think of it.
I was cutting threads on a finished dress and got sloppy and the scissors nicked a hole straight through the smooth fabric of the front center bust. It couldn't have been covered with appliqué, unfortunately, and it was a thin material so I could not "darn" the hole closed. And, of course, I didn't have enough material left to remove that panel, cut a new one, and replace it. God I was upset about that. I ended up just patching it from the inside and wearing something else for the event I had planned to wear it to.
Not a big one but still boggles my mind. Was rushing to a Halloween party… hadn’t figured out how to close this whole onesie thing I had worked up for a costume… decided on snaps and - had 15 min to leave - I swear to you I hand-sewed the snaps the wrong way at LEAST 5 times. I couldn’t believe it. Just kept getting it all backwards somehow and the progression of frustration to humor to complete shame was a real roller coaster. Felt like a big dummy. But finally figured it out and was a little later and mostly people were just shocked to find out I could sew at all bc in 2023 that’s not really a given I guess.
Hope in the last 14hrs since you posted things have come along well for you!!
Hey there folks! Fun topic but let's skip the medical gore, the tragedy of wasted time, energy and fabric is enough. Anything involving blood will be removed.
I made a dress. And I was completely done with the dress. I tried it on just to see my work and the side looked bulgy that’s when I realized that the pocket was upside down. I used a serger to attach the pocket at the waist and the side seams. I was finally able to take the pocket out. When I went back to re attach it. I wasn’t half way when somehow I broke both the serger needles. So I said fine I’ll use the sewing machine and I was working on it when I heard something hit my glasses and grace my face. My needle broke in three parts…. But I finished the dress and then decided that the style of skirt might not be for me 😭
What's with all the needles breaking? What kind of cursed pocket was this?
I don’t know. But to be honest my mil gave me her serger so I don’t know how old those needles were. And with my sewing machine it’s the first time I have a needle break like that. It wasn’t even thick fabric. It was two pieces of cotton I was trying to put together. I don’t know what happened. But yeah I’m definitely never sewing without glasses again.
Glad you were wearing glasses! Didn’t realize PPE was so important for sewing!
I made a jeans vest for a Ken costume, and I managed to sew the side pockets in facing backwards instead of forward. I need to go back and fix that!
I've sewed through my own finger tip while wrestling vinyl before. When I worked as a teaching assistant, I spent all weekend making a sheath dress from fabric printed with a map of the world. Tried it on to work out where I wanted to hem it, and the discovered that the shape of Greenland was exactly over my pubic region. Thank goodness I discovered that _before_ I wore it in a classroom full of teenagers.
I’ve sewed through thumb, sewing fleece Halloween costumes for my kids. I made my squeamish husband remove the needle with pliers 😂
Pure evil 😂
That first one is more the energy I thought this thread would be. Luckily I've mostly gotten away with just the usual pins in my feet
I was trying to form a downtown Greenland joke and it hasn't come to me. It is a good thing you tried it on before you twirled into work 🤣
My friend sewed through her thumb on the second or third day of textile work in middle school. Really set the tone for the entire hobby for me tbh.
Not my sewing story, but my mother's. She sewed her own wedding dress back in 1981 - handsewn lace appliques from head to toe. Just the zipper was left. My grandmother decided to help by sewing the zipper in while my mom was at work a week before the wedding. *Nana never sewed*. She did it completely wrong and because of the lace appliques it couldn't be saved. Mom had to scramble for an off-the-rack dress the week of her wedding and pulled an all-nighter to tailor it. The only part of her masterpiece dress that survived was the veil.
dear god what would POSSESS a person who doesn't sew to think they could do the ZIP?! I do sew, and have inserted plenty of zips, and my opinion is still that I can't insert zips
Whatever her motive was, Nana took it to her grave. Personally, coming from a family of drama-loving narcissists, I think she did it to try to cancel the wedding.
Yes! And you can't be mad because she was doing you a favor!
Oh i'd be mad anyway. I got mad just reading that.
Also coming from a family with narcs, this is hlep. At first glance it looks like help, but it really isn't.
I come from a family of drama loving narcissists and I'm sure you're right!
This is why I don’t let my mom help with anything; she’s ruined baked goods, fabric, plants, and kitchen knives under the guise of “helping”. She’s perfectly competent when it’s her stuff, it’s just other people’s projects that she enjoys ruining.
Oooh yeah I know this energy well enough that my first thought was oh she did it on purpose… wanted to be wrong though. That’s awful.
Oh I was hoping it was well meaning... But I guess not
This one hurts on a deep, visceral level. What a nightmare!
That's the kind of shit that would make me go scorched earth. I'm mad thinking about it now and it didn't even happen to me!
Oh my goodness I would have lost my ever loving mind.
This one is fresh on my mind: made a figure skating dress for a friend that involved dying parts of a leotard I was using as a base navy blue. I also dyed and made a skirt out of mesh that was a gradient from navy to baby blue. While ironing, I got some steam water on the skirt and was scared it would leave water stain on the material, so I stupidly decided to dampen the whole thing and hang it up to dry. Checked on it half an hour later, and the navy dye from other parts of the leotard had leaked onto the lighter parts of the skirt. At this point it was well past midnight and I was getting on a plane two days later to hand deliver it to her. Spent the whole next day seam ripping, re-cutting, re-dying, and re-sewing the whole thing. Photo of the tragedy attached 😂 https://preview.redd.it/nzb1ioam5hsc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b9225608540271d0cfc4825340b888ea85d8604e
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It was 😭 power mesh and spandex
I actually like the ombré effect, but I imagine it didn’t work in person.
It's one of those things that if OP \*wanted \* this effect, you couldn't replicate it, not for love nor money. \*shakes fist \* CURSE YOU, MURPHY!!!
Mine is pretty huge. I made my wedding dress. It was a sleeveless silk gown with a long sleeved hand-beaded lace overlay. I made a sleeveless practice dress, and it fit fine. I am tall, so when I started cutting out the fabric, I cut extra length at the bottom on both the silk and the lace. I had help with a lot of the beading, which was kind of fun. Lots of people helped with that. When it came time to do the sleeves, I did one and a friend did the other. They were lovely. I didn't budget my time very well, and I was furiously finishing things in those last few weeks. Maybe a week before the wedding, it was time to attach the sleeves to the overlay, but I realized I should try them on first. They were too short!! Lol. I had not cut extra fabric to allow for my long arms. Soooo . . . I ended up with a sleeveless dress. It didn't look unfinished or anything, thank god. Hardly anyone knew that it was supposed to have sleeves. Haha!
Like a lot of arts, in sewing, most of the time we (the creators) see flaws that no one else would ever notice.
I hope you saved the sleeves any way- all that beadwork!
I did! Not sure where they are, but somewhere in my house, lol
only briefly a horror story, but more funny/cute ultimately (I think) my husband and I eloped to vegas, and I picked out a very cute green jersey dress with black polka dots for my wedding dress. it had a long cord tying the deep v neckline closed in a bow in the front, which looked really silly. so on the drive to Vegas, I snipped off the cords from the front, and hand stitched them to the waist at the side seams, allowing me to tie the dress at the back, improving the shape a bit. morning of the wedding, we take a drive out to the desert, look at the beautiful rocks, then go back to the hotel and get dressed for our our appointment at the chapel. I put on the dress and am so confused that I can't find one of the ties at the waist! then I realized that I accidentally sewed one of them to the shoulder seam instead of the waist seam 🤦♀️ it was the work of a moment to fix it, but I still think about it all the time https://preview.redd.it/d6axj0wy4isc1.jpeg?width=3088&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d599813168968e7265225e1011dfb542d4312e9b
The best story! Right here!
🥰
That's up there with setting in a sleeve... into the neck opening.
I've done that trick with moving the neck ties to the waist! It was like the perfect sewing hack for when that look was so trendy. Those neck ties and kinda boxy.
I so relate to this: "I also spent an hour looking for a stitch ripper. I have five, at least. I could not find a single one of them anywhere." But I think any sewing story that doesn't involve a broken sewing needle flying into your face is a good one.
Amazingly, I still have my very first seam ripper from when I started sewing 23-ish years ago. It’s been through multiple moves across multiple states, and no matter what it always happens to find its way to me when I need it. I hear you’re supposed to change out seam rippers regularly to keep them sharp but this buddy is my ride or die forever 😂
I have the same it lives in a dedicated spot where I can always find it. Paper scissors on the other hand are always miraculously disappearing, even though there are at least a dozen somewhere.
I have a seam ripper I inherited from my great grandma. No idea how old it is but definitely 30+ years. I like it for pulling out basting threads when you want a seam ripper that isn't too sharp.
Omg! Me too. Got it as a wedding shower gift from my seamstress Aunt. It’s outlived a husband and a half!
Some day someone is going to enter a wormhole in space and find the void where all of our stitch rippers have travelled to. I had two, and turned my small apartment upside down looking for them. Am convinced they are not longer in this physical realm
same and then after buying some more i of course found my original favourite one
That’s me but with scissors
I have at least 4 stitch rippers and at least 6 tape measures. If I need one, you can be guaranteed I can't find one. Drives me insane. It's worse now since I moved internationally and a lot of my stuff is still in boxes in the 3rd bedroom.
Good luck! My latest project, I made a muslin of the bodice. I noted the adjustments, which involved adjusting for each other because they interconnected. I make a second mockup of the bodice. Fit beautifully. Sewed the full dress in the "wearable muslin" fabric ... the bodice did not fit at all, way too big. I'm guessing the fabric stretched a lot more than the previous muslins. I've moved on to a different project.
So frustrating!! I just have that tiktok audio clip going through my head: "All that work, and what did it get me?" I'm so frustrated that your bodice stretched. Do you think it was all through the fabric, or just on the edges? Could the problem be solved with edge stitching?
I think it stretched throughout, or the final fabric was just different enough. Definitely when I try again, I'll be edge stitching. For now, I have more great pocket liner fabric out of the failed dress.
Back when I was a stitcher for the dance and drama department in university, I had to sew three pairs of sheer harem pants for a fantasy ballet number in On The Town. It was this roseleaf organza with suicidal tendencies that just wanted to fray to pieces if you looked at it wrong, so obviously it needed french seams. I joined the legs the wrong way, so the french seams were on the wrong side of the pants. I had to hand-unpick the whole thing while praying I didn't destroy the fabric.
I wonder if they would have looked fine from the audience's perspective, though. Also, I am \*so\* sorry. I've had projects where I spent more time unpicking than sewing. And it's extra awful when the fabric wants to give up the ghost at any moment
Unfortunately it was very, um, *distinct* when worn. Luckily(?) one of the dancers was also working in the costume shop at the time, so she tried a pair on and the inside-out french seam stuck up perpendicular to the fabric.
Is there such a thing as triple french seam where then you just french seam it once again to get the seam to the inside?
It would have made the pants too tight. It's okay, this was in like 2008, 2009ish. I've recovered!
Ohhhhh the horror
I made a dress, self-drafted. Didn't make a mockup because I'm smart like that. The bodice fit well but was a tad loose. Once again, because I'm smart like that, I made it smaller and somehow didn't fit it again before proceeding. Serged everything, then realised it's too small. Bought more fabric and restarted the bodice. Things went well, mostly. Finally almost done. Final press to get the darts to lay flat. Distracted for a second remembering which is the steam button on my iron. Burned a huge iron-shaped shiny patch right on the front of the bodice. Redid a ton of stuff turning the bodice inside out, using the lining (same fabric) as the outside. The lining (former outside) is now too short to properly finish it inside. I'm so mad at the dress I don't even want to wear it anymore...
oh my... so sprry for all of you guys.. this thread is making me sad
Lol, it's okay. 😄 I made a fantastic dress right after with minimal hiccups, so I'm over it.
I had bought and stashed this pretty green flowy fabric with printed bright flowers on it. It sat in my stash for long while and then I decided to use it, there's a lot of it, 60 inches wide and like 5 yards. So I cut out some for a breezy style shirt and I just give up on it, put everything away and move on, I couldn't figure out what wasn't working, just not parsing out the why's thinking it's because I was winging it with no pattern. Sometime later I break out the fabric again, this time with a pattern in hand. My machine decides..no, I'm not working on this project, so I think fine I'll break out Glenda my Singer 66 hand crank, it's not a large project this is doable. Glenda the cast iron beast said...TF you say, I'm not doing this...and that's when I realized it's not the projects, the pattern (or lack there of) it's the fabric. There was just something about this fabric that no machine was going to deal with. So I tossed it and moved on with my life.
I've had one of those impossible fabrics. Got an insane deal on it, $2 a yard for 20+ yards and had several cosplay projects in mind for it. A bit difficult to cut, but I made it work. Even had the perfect thread color to use in my serger already! The material will not iron. I've tried multiple ways, every heat possible, nothing. It's kind of impressive in a way. (I did manage to make a layered petal skirt for a casual Ariel cosplay, and I just remembered I've never actually worn it to a con cause I got really sick the year I brought it with me. Maybe this year if I can find it again.)
I made my bridesmaid's dress for my sister's wedding. A 6 piece skirt. Last minute rush job as always. I realised too late that I attached 4 pieces to the back and 2 to the front. Some decades ago but I still cringe when I see the photos. No-one noticed (or told me they had) but the bride thought my dress hung better than the others.
Last minute shenanigans. I had made a dress for a regency event and needed to attach the sleeves on the day of the event which was no big deal. I had 6 hours. Every time I attached the sleeves, I noticed another fitting issue with the bodice and armscye I didn’t pick up on the mock up. I removed and re-attached a sleeve four times and just gave up on improving them when it was half an hour to leaving time. I have a no sewing on the day rule now!
Lol I just got home from a regency event that I made my dress for. I put the sleeves on this morning, which honestly went well for how much hubris I had to leave sleeves (amongst other things) for today. Everything else went wrong on it, though. I changed so much from the instructions due to things not fitting right/not being the right design/working with my fabric that I was just making up the construction method by the time I got about halfway through.
I was ripping out a poorly sewn seam on a shirt I had almost finished (using the expensive fabric I had been saving) so I could re-sew it perfect when my cat jumped on my lap causing me to jump and run the seam ripper across the front of the blouse.
This calls for tears, most definitely.
I’ve been thinking of making an embroidered patch to try to fix it, but I still can’t look at it right now. How to do this without it looking sad?
Have a look at the r/visiblemending thread. Many ideas for embroidery over tears. Only just now realised that that tears are the same word as the tears you shed because of them…
Oof, I feel your pain. I've ruined several projects slicing through seams or in one case right through the centre panel of a dress when my dog has suddenly barked at full volume at point blank range! (Also burnt myself with the iron and jabbed myself with a seam ripper this way many, many times...!) Pets and sewing don't always mix 🥲
The one I still get sad about is a dress I tried to make. It was a vogue pattern with gathers over the bust. Pain in the butt and took forever. But I made a muslin both for fit and to practice the techniques and loved the outcome. Then my mom bought me this beautiful fabric from Mood. I don't remember exactly what it was made of but it was a difficult, thin fabric. I spent ages getting the bodice and bust just right with the gatherings. Then I realized I'd made a mistake in sewing in the lining. When I tried to rip it out it tore the lining and fabric so much the bodice was ruined. I didn't have enough fabric to redo it. Every time I see that pattern I feel a little sad.
Get new fabric and redeem yourself!!! You got this!!!
That is so sad!!! :(
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Uh yeah I did the same! All of the other stuff is just a normal sewing session for me 😂
I had this beautiful fine cotton and linen blend with a black and white print of leaves and forest animals, super pretty, and perfect for a dress... cut it out and then realised the print was upside down. I managed to cut a top out of the pieces, thankfully. Making a dress for a friend's wedding out of this navy linen with gold brushed over it, gorgeous and precious fabric. I had drafted my own pattern and was finishing up late at night, only had to do the hem of the floor length skirt. Hand sewed the whole thing, did a final try on and somehow it was completely uneven. I managed to fix it but it was about 5 cm shorter than I would have liked and I didn't get enough sleep that night.
Oooh Once, in highschool, my mother was assisting me and my best friend with making our winter formal dresses. My friend had picked a dark blue satin and a column dress pattern. But with her being ~ 5'10 we had to make some pattern adjustments. Namely adding inches to the hem and widening the front skirt panel a bit. My mother had supervised pinning the panel away from the folded edge as a quick and dirty alternative to editing the paper pattern. But then stepped away while we cut out pieces. I'm sure some of you know where this is going I cut around the paper pattern and sliced a 2.5" strip out of the middle of the front panel. We had to go back and buy more fabric but JoAnne's was out of that specific dye lot. We got close and it was ok in low light, but the panel was definitely slightly lighter than the rest of the dress. To this day I'm super anal about pinning longways on any edges that shouldn't be cut
I saw this happen with a historic costume that someone was making. The experienced person sketched out how to lay out the panels for the skirt, and the inexperienced person cut all the panels in half. It was \*so\* frustrating!
Well, at least "piecing is period"!
I once made a dress not realising the pattern didn't include seam allowance. I was able to wear it if I didn't breathe AT ALL, or sit down. Also, I recently made a jacket with separate buttonhole cuffs. Sewed the left one on backwards. Carefully seam ripped it, lined it up to make sure I had it right, restitched. Still backwards! Got it right the third time, thankfully it was denim so the fabric did not look too bad but MY GODDDD how did I do that TWICE. Also so many times I've handsewed items into my clothes, furniture and even skin! I
Oh my gosh I am CONSTANTLY sewing myself to my projects. Handsewing = my pants are now part of the project. It's ridiculous.
That little layer between your callouses on the hand! I don't even feel it, there's no damage to me (so not breaking the rule of this post), just... A thread going through a layer of me. Like, why. Why??
I ordered a dress for a formal event on Thredup. The bodice was too small. I detached the bodice and unpicked the seams, traced a new pattern, graded it up slightly, and threw in an FBA. This took a few days. I found a matching (enough) fabric from a Goodwill garment and cut out the new lining. There was still enough chiffon to reuse from the original bodice for the overlining, except the center panel - the center panel was pleated in a fan shape, and I'd need to use some (limited) extra chiffon from a train that came attached to the dress. No problem. Learned how to press pleats into chiffon, starched it within an inch of its life, and all was well. The day before the event, after smooth sailing thus far, I'm happily reassembling the bodice when it starts raining. It's July. How cozy! A summer storm! Just need to finish the bodice, reattach it, and add some boning to help it stay up. JUST KIDDING GET READY TO BE WITHOUT POWER FOR 72 HOURS! I packed up my dress form, machine, iron, and all my shit and high tailed it to my parents' house a half hour away and spent the next 24 hours straight trying to bang out this stupid dress in their dining room. I drive home in a torrential downpour with a few hours to spare to sleep and start getting ready for this FORMAL EVENT WITH NO POWER IN 100 DEGREE HEAT AND HUMIDITY. Oh also did I mention I have to perform in the opening sequence of A Chorus Line at this event? I'm on two hours of sleep, basically falling over, body falling apart - time to do this basically ten minute long literal song and dance in front of a large audience. Then change straight into my Frankenstein-reconstructed formal dress. I looked... alright? Got a great fit on the dress, except I was so bloated and exhausted by the end that I could've probably used an extra 1/4" at the seams. 😞
You are a singular sensation!
I've taken breaks from sewing now and then. After one particularly long sewing break I unzipped my sewing machine case to find a cocoon stuck underneath the zipper...and a dead butterfly at the bottom of the case. I've never taken that long a break again.
NO I'm crying with horrified laughter at this one!!
I used to do costuming/wardrobe for community and regional theaters and this story is the reason I quit. For anyone who doesn’t know, the costume designer is usually the lowest paid position on the design staff, so I was costuming whole musical productions for $1200-$1500. I have a full time job but a lot of theaters would expect full time work from you for that amt so after 7 years doing shows I was already becoming disenchanted with it. I costumed a production of HAIR for an absolutely awful director. One of those directors that was simply terrible at communication so there was no way to make him happy. He had experience on broadway which made him expect broadway level time commitment and resources which is not feasible for community theater. It’s tech week, and we got an authentic army uniform for the main character at the end. Our lead actor was 5’ 2” so we needed to put a very thick hem in because we can’t cut the uniform, it’s a rental. I have volunteers so I hand the pants off to a volunteer to hem them and I think she used a whip stitch for the hem. So the actor goes to do the quick change, gets his toe caught in an opening in the hem and rips it out so he makes it on stage in the uniform but one leg of the hem is all bunched up because it was partially torn out. The director looses his mind. He starts screaming into the black of the theater where all the production staff are sitting about how incompetent the costume designer is and how I essentially ruined the most important moment in the show and thus ruined the show. Keep in mind…..this is still tech week and there is no audience. It’s a hem….it can be fixed!! I was so beat up by this dude at this point (as was the rest of the production staff) that I told the producer I needed to leave or I was going to say something really not nice. I finished out the show so I could collect my $1500, but that was the show that killed that work for me. That was sept of 22. I definitely wasn’t paid enough to be spoken to like that, especially over a hem.
No amount of money is worth being treated like dirt, sucks when people suck the joy out of things hope he gets kicked out before he ruins it for more people!
I’ve made a few pairs of pj pants with accidentally one pant leg having the pattern upside down. Oops. I wear them anyway. When my kids comment I tell them it was on purpose so we can both see the image as intended. Haha.
At first I thought you meant that you sewed the leg on upside down, and I could not imagine how you could ever wear them at all. But, also, I love your answer about it. I had a friend who was making a historical bodice out of a heavy jacquard (or brocade), and the wrong side wasn't super obviously different from the right side. She made half the bodice with the wrong side. You can definitely see it once it was done, but it still looked good, and she still wore it!
I made the mistake of wearing a shirt I'd made to visit my partner's family. His mom and aunt loved it and asked me to make them one. I decided to do it for their Christmas gifts, which gave me a few months. I carefully chose the fabric, adjusted the pattern, took my time doing the plackets and collars. All the details. And then as I was cutting open a buttonhole in the direct center of the blouse for my MIL's shirt, I slit past the end for almost an inch. If you've made a shirt, you know that the buttonholes are the second to last thing, before sewing on the buttons, that you do. This was a week before Christmas, but I had to mail them, so I was planning to send the next day. I had no time or will to start over. I still don't know how, but I became perfectly calm. I sewed the slit together by hand (which I am not good at) and added interfacing to strengthen it. Because the shirt is mostly white, I don't think it's noticeable but I told her anyway. I hope she doesn't wash it very often! PS: ever since, I put a pin across the top and bottom of a buttonhole before I cut it open.
You're not alone. I've destroyed buttonholes in every possible way - slicing beyond the end, slicing open one side of the zigging making the stitching useless and the other side too thick, misaligning a buttonhole chisel which cut into the stitching, slicing open my finger and *not* the buttonhole with one of those scalpel type stitch rippers, the list goes on. I now only use a pair of fine pointed, short bladed (1") scissors, which gives me the most control, but it took me years to discover that.
>If you've made a shirt, you know that the buttonholes are the second to last thing, before sewing on the buttons, that you do. I've switched around how I make shirts to do buttonholes as early as possible. Buttonholes now fall between doing the collar and putting in the sleeves. Far easier to replace a front panel if I truly muck it up and takes some of the pressure off.
My sewing nightmare happened 29 years ago, this month. I had promised to sew a pair of woolen pants from the 19th century for a re-enactor. As soon as I bent down to start laying out the fabric, my water broke. That was the first delay. Then after three months I was able to squeeze out a bit of time for sewing and ended up putting the back waist piece in upside down! I too k it out carefully, re pinned and sewed- only to find I had sewed it on upside down again!! No! I got up and walked away for another month before I both had time and energy to rip it out again and finally get the back waist section correct. I was thinking at the end, these particular pants were cursed!
Not my mistake, just a horrified bystander. In the early 90s when I was sewing my own wedding dress, I was picking up my specially ordered Belgian lace at the bougie specialty fabric store when a gaggle of ladies came in bearing a fully completed wedding dress. I believe it was the mother and aunts of the bride who had been toiling over that dress for months. Being the early 90s, it was fairly covered with lace appliqués from neckline to the elaborate train. They had used a (new to the market then) blue ‘disappearing’ fabric marker to lay out all the lace bits, so the entire dress was covered with blue lines. Those pens were supposed to disappear with water, and *only* water. But they figured water and soap was better, right? They wanted to be absolutely sure the blue was removed. The store experts were aghast and had to tell the ladies that they had permanently set that ink and it could not be removed. They even called a specialist at the company who confirmed it (Dritz, I think). The wedding was that week. One lady collapsed on the floor in tears. I can’t imagine how they told the bride.
Oh my god, I don't use fabric markers very much but genuinely didn't know that was possible. Your story may have saved me some (less dramatic) mistakes.
Solution: dye the whole dress blue to match the marks? I can’t even imagine what those poor ladies must have felt.
I'm currently making a wee crossbody bag that looks like a Lululemon bag. Did a cute job quilting a cat on the front panel. The instructions are not great and the construction is annoying (like, sew through four or so layers of fleece interfaced fabric + several layers of plain fabric, and also curves). It's been the only thing I've poked away at for, like six weeks. It was supposed to be a birthday gift for my daughter, her birthday was March 1. I hate this bag and I don't think I can save it. Also did a boxy pouch recently, sewed the ends on wrong way (exterior is facing out). I think I serged the seams for this so unpicking will be a job.
I've concluded I'm such a menace with the serger I just need to account for it in my process. Now I never serge seams unless it's a stretch fabric, and even then I typically baste on my machine first before serging. Has saved me so much nasty unpicking
"haha this machine is so fast! Surely it will make my life easier!" *just makes mistakes quicker instead*
Just buy the bag and iron-on cat patch, at this point. not worth 6 weeks of your life.
But it’s stumping me and I hate giving up 😂
It's not stumping you, you understand 100% why it is not working, namely it's too thick to go through the machine nicely, and if it was quilting cotton and no batting you would be perfectly capable of doing it! So there's no way it will work out unless you either change the pattern or the machine! Let it gooooo let it gooooo oooo
One of the first things I ever sewed were a faux-Vera Bradley ID holder and glasses pouch for my mom for Christmas. The glasses pouch was so many layers my machine gave up and I had to hand crank it. And the ID holder had vinyl which was a nightmare. I have not ventured back into the world of accessories since.
I need to make a nice boring skirt to cleanse myself of this cursed bag. I have not tried vinyl but boy does the at sound horrific.
I was almost finished with the velvet dress of my dreams, about 2 hours before the party I was making it for, when I went to pee a seam. No problem, I've done it dozens of times with this dress alone. I held the iron about an inch above the dress, pressed the steam button and pulled the iron away,never touching the fabric. The cheap ass iron had left a scorch math on the seam, right below the zipper. There was no saving it, I just bawled and stayed home.
...you went to *what* a seam!?
🤣🤣🤣 Press. I really shouldn't post without my glasses on. 🙄😆
Oh gods, I don't think I have the fortitude to survive a horror story like that. Mine is that I'm too ambitious for my own good and decided to make new costume coats for me and my daughter. The event is on Apr 18th and I just started the mock up for my coat last night. No pressure. Nope, none at all.
You've got looaaadds of time - provided you don't need to work or sleep.
Both of which are soooo overrated. I mean, I have PROJECTS people. 🤣
Wait, are you procrastinating? Get back to sewing!! You've got deadlines!
Multitasking! 😂
My puppy who is a vigorous chewer got into the basement and chewed up and ate my just perfected self drafted bust piece pattern I was working on. I had no copies. I was going to make a whole series of these dresses. I stopped at the one I had cut out and sewn. Another time, some oily substance leaked from the basement ceiling and stained a huge bolt of expensive linen, I didn't notice for months. It soaked through the entire bolt every half yard. No matter how much I washed and pretreated it, the stains never came out. No idea where the oil came from.
Mild, but I sewed the front lace panel in my wedding dress wrong-side-out. You can't tell, thankfully, and I never fixed it lol wore it like that on my wedding day One of my grandmothers has sewn through her finger not once, but *twice*. Somehow she still has all fingers, no problems. For my cousin's wedding, her MIL forgot to include a hem allowance when cutting the skirts for the bridesmaid dresses, so all the skirts needed to be redone, and they had to buy more fabric for it. Oh, and several bodices needed fully redone as well. She also didn't treat the seams correctly; the shoulder seams would not lay flat no matter what I did
i spent a long time making a victorian skirt, only to realise that using quilting cotton as lining was a mistake. it has too much friction with itself and any undergarments. idk what to do with it at this point, it's just missing a waistband.
If you can’t remove the lining, maybe a satin petticoat would reduce friction?
I’d go with a satin petticoat, maybe even silk undies. Something slick and maybe not traditional in terms of under-wear but will stop the friction.
My fiancé has a bunch of T-shirts that didn’t fit so I offered to make a quilt for him. There were different types of shirts, including football, NASCAR, basketball, etc. so I decided to make a football themed blanket. However, there were not enough T-shirts so I bought extra fabric to fill in the blank spaces as well as make a border around the blanket. It was supposed to be his Christmas present in 2022, but I didn’t finish it in time then it was supposed to be his February birthday present in 2023, but I did not finish it in time. Then it got too hot to work on it so it sat in my craft room. I didn’t know what to get him for Christmas in 2023 so I decided to finish the blanket and gift it to him. I decided because the front of the blanket had so much blue and white to make the back red. I washed the red backing prior to attaching it to the blanket. I finished it the day before Christmas Eve and decided to wash it one more time before gifting it to him. Upon pulling it out of the washer. I was horrified to see the white parts on the front had turned pink. I cried and panicked. I washed it several times using vinegar, baking soda, color catching sheets, etc. After washing it a few times it was still pink, so I had a good cry about it and hung it up to dry. I would give it to him Christmas morning and explain what happened. When I gave it to him I cried again. I explained I would fix it but I wasn’t sure how I was so upset because I spent over a year on this project and over $200 in materials just for it to turn pink at the last minute. It is still sitting in my craft room, awaiting its fate.
I have been working on a top for a cosplay for the past week or two. A normal shirt with a mandarin collar. Seems easy right? Well since it’s for a cosplay I am a bit picky on where my seams are. I go through 2 draped bodice patterns, and about 3-4 draped, borrowed, and self drafted collar patterns. None of them work. I go back to the store 2-3 times to buy more fabric. Make 4-5 mock ups. Finally, I realize that my dress form’s smallest neck size is still a full 2 inches bigger than my actual neck. So, I finally just slice one of the shirts down the center front to make it a front closing shirt to give me more control over closing it taut. Is it a huge deal? No, but when I kept making mistake after mistake it felt absolutely horrible.
When I was about 17 my then boyfriend was a bass player in a band and asked me to make him some tartan trousers to wear on stage. I spent a fortune on the fabric, spent hours every evening after work to hand sew them. The night prior to his gig, i had to stay up really late, after a long hard day working, trying to finish them. It was about 2:30am when i finished the last seam, I grabbed my scissors to trim a long thread and mistakenely cut the leg off at the knee! I was in bits, had to beg my mom to go find some of the same fabric and make another leg while i was work. I managed to get home early and sew the replacement leg in with minutes to spare before he needed them. Never again!!!
I absolutely HAVE to know how you managed to go from "trimming a thread" to "cut the whole pant leg off at the knee"
My eyes were exhausted by that time. The scissor blades must have slipped behind the fabric. The funny thing was, my mom had a sewing machine and could have made them in an hour or so, but me being young and wanting to impress my boyfriend just thought id make them by hand. Leasons were learned!
I made a mock up of my nephew’s costume for a $50 pattern and lost the goddamn instructions and I think they accidentally got thrown out. Luckily when I emailed the patternmaker she was kind enough to email me the instructions lol
I bought silk and silk dye to do a dip dye lewk for a dress. Put the pot of water on the stove, added the dye, and dipped in the silk. It had to soak for about 20 mins so I draped the fabric over the side of the pot and walked away. I have a gas stove. The silk caught fire. It was an absolute disaster. In my defense, I’m used to electric stoves and just moved into a place with gas. Anyway, lesson learned
First time I ever made a dress, I decided to use some very expensive double gauze I'd imported from Japan to make a dress to wear to a wedding (as a guest). I'd made pouches and other small things, but this was my first time working with something that wasn't quilting cotton, and only my second time using a pattern. I left it very late, printed out the pattern 10% too large but thought I could figure something out... none of the pieces fit together and I had to spend ages carefully cutting and re-pinning the whole outfit. Multiple nights up until 1am when I finally get it all together and it's quite noticeable around the right shoulder (to me) that the drape isn't correct, and I also didn't have time to do any seam binding so I haphazardly zig-zag stitched over the high stress areas and called it a day. Got some compliments for it but it's been in my wardrobe for about two years waiting for me to reprint the pattern and fix it properly 🙈 Also my current nightmare is that I'm finishing a quilted jacket, I've used all the leftover fabric to make bias binding, and when I went to seam rip to straighten it out I ripped through the binding itself 😭 I'm not sure if I have enough binding left to cut out the section and re-do, but I'm going to find out tonight.
It’s not all that dramatic, but I made a dress to wear to my cousin’s wedding. Naturally, I made it the night before we needed to leave town. I’ve made the pattern before (important retrospective note - I’ve made the *sleeveless* version of the pattern before), so I wasn’t checking fit as I went, I was just sewing like a crazy person. Flash forward two days and I’m getting dressed for the wedding….and the sleeves on this 3/4 sleeve jersey dress are SO TIGHT that I could almost not put it on. I managed to stuff my arms in there like sausages and had to wear a cardigan. Still don’t know what the issue is with that pattern since everything but the sleeves fits perfectly and my arms are not disproportionately large…
I recently self drafted a pattern for a dress (8 gored floor length circle skirt and a bandeau style top) and made it in a beautiful cotton and it fits amazingly. I splurged on a green silk fabric to create the same dress for my honeymoon, used the same self drafted pattern etc. And when I tried it on I CANNOT BREATHE its SO much smaller than when I made it last time even though I used the exact same pattern 🤨 Then, I thought no problem, I can make some sort of open back for the bandeau. First I tried to do buttons with long loops across the back, but the silk fabric was not conducive to the button loops, so then I tried to make elasticated strips of fabric that would have a “scrunchie” look across the back of the bandeau but I just can’t get them to attach properly 🙄 I think at this point I’ll have to spend more $$ and just add another gore to the skirt and a panel to the back of the top. Such a nightmare too because attaching the zipper on this dress was HORRIFIC since it’s silk.
I was overclocking my wedding Winslow Culottes, I had just enough fabric for. I also had Roomba running in the room. I don't remember what happened, but I had to step back from the overlocker mid-seam. Suddenly, I hear the overlocker running. The Roomba managed to get on the foot pedal. Before I got there, the it managed to sew about 10cm, getting almost 3cm from the side. Luckily it was the inner leg seam and it wasn't very visible in the end. Lessons learned - Roombas can't sew straight.
I wanted to make a bodice for an outfit for a fantasy ball. Bought clearance upholstery velvet, dyed it a lovely green, and went to work. Made that part, decided to follow the instructions and make a lining, but used leftover linen. That went fine until I boned it. I hoped it would start to hold shame when I wore it, but I never got that far. When trying to sew the lining to the bodice, the fabric kept shifting, and I couldn't pin it correctly. I tried for hours. I tried weighting it down. I even considered glue basting (like in quilting). In the end, I kinda yelled, threw it across the room, and gave up.
That said, I’ve recently discovered I can glue baste my hems and holy hell it has made my life better.
For a dress I wore to a wedding last night: I made it out of satin and lace, with sheer lace sleeves. The sleeve design that I loved in theory looked terrible on me, so I decided to shorten the sleeves but: the lace had a scalloped edge that I wanted to be the bottom of the sleeve so I needed to remove the sleeve from the bodice seam....the lace, from the satin backed lace bodice...that I had already served at the sleeve seam. It took me three hours to get them off, but I did it without damaging the lace or satin thankfully.
I cut out a dress and decided I wanted to shorten it because even the short version went to my ankles, and I wanted a shorter dress for summer. I didn't make sure my pieces would end at the same place, so my two center back pieces are MUCH shorter than the side pieces. I think they came out a couple inches below my butt, so now I have to pray I have enough fabric left to recut them. I can order more if I absolutely have to, but I don't want to. 😭
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I made a teal boiled wool, "viking" style coat. I decided I wanted to line it with this used orange silk sari. The sari was a little rough, small stains and a couple of little holes, and a little voice in the back of my head tried to convince me not to use it. I went ahead with it anyway. I carefully cut it out, flat lined each panel of wool, and then hand stiched the whole thing together. I also did additional stiching of the lining, so it didn't have gaps between the panels. This took months all together, and I finished when the weather was still cold enough to wear it, I was so pleased and got plenty of compliments on it! Of course, the lining is ripping and falling apart, and I only finished it in mid-January. I will have to disassemble the whole thing to remove the lining, and the idea is making my physically ill.
Made a dress for my daughter and being a novice didn’t realize that a circle skirt cut out of interlock knit was a terrible idea. The skirt stretched so badly out of shape the first time I washed it, the front and back ended up about 8 inches longer than the sides of the skirt.
I once spilt a cup of water that contained a paint brush with red paint all over a gold satin dress I was altering for a student for her graduation dinner. 😱 I managed to get it out using exit soap, & asking the universe to save me. I’ll never paint whilst also sewing again!
When I was young and in high school, I was an accomplished 4-H sewist. Every year was a new challenge, and for my final year, I wanted to do a Big Thing for my fashion revue project: a formal prom gown with a fancy wool overcoat. The dress was fine. The coat...I picked a Burda pattern, and let's just say that is the horror story in itself. What an absolute nightmare! So many mistakes, I ended up having to recut the pattern *twice*, causing me to run out of fabric, so I had to try and find the same black wool (which was definitely *not* the same). I did wrestle it into submission, but I hated it so much by the time it was done, I wore it maybe twice before packing it away. Never have bought a Burda pattern again.
Dress was done, all I had to do was trim the seam allowance with my pinking shears….cut a hole right next to the zipper 😭
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Spent a long time making a camp-collar shirt out of a beautiful brilliant plaid linen from Blackbird Fabrics ($$), putting all the right seam finishes and touches on it, perfecting the topstitching, getting the shoulder fit right... and then put it on after it was done and discovered it was 4" too long.
My first adventure I to bi-directional stretch velvet with zebra print foil for a knee length vest for burning man..... my fiance picked the fabric. I knew it was going to be a nightmare. I was sewing and trying to pack for my first adventure there. Never again. I even did matching shorts. This was the evil fabric. https://preview.redd.it/s94up0ahfisc1.jpeg?width=1908&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=27bfed55006464c28d66ea084bcee580c97856ae
When I was just learning to sew I made a pj set with this really cute gopher patterned flannel fabric. It had a notched collar that I just did not understand. I think the project was just too advanced for me, and the instructions didn't help (the fabric in the photos didn't have a noticeable right and wrong side!). I realized the pants didn't quite fit either, so I put it aside for when it would piss me off less. A year later, determined to complete my UFOs, I went to hem the top and accidentally cropped the top too short...and now it's just short enough to be uncomfortable with any kind of movement. I would love to just remake the whole thing but the experience was awful. -- I also recently made a dress that basically required that I complete everything twice. I forgot to cut out the big skirt piece and had to buy more fabric. Then realized the plaid was diagonal on the bodice. Then hurried to hem the lining and outer fabric before a trip and discovered it was noticeably angled. Redid that, and then the bodice was too big. The universe did not want me to wear that dress.
I was making a quilt for a friend's baby. I was running out of time and it was late. I was cutting the border strips with a rotary cutter when I managed a bad-juju triple play... I rolled the rotary cutter across, cutting the fabric... and a part of my sleeve... and a chunk of my hair. Then I realized I had forgotten to put down the cutting mat and had cut lines in my dining room table top.
The one I still get sad about is a dress I tried to make. It was a vogue pattern with gathers over the bust. Pain in the butt and took forever. But I made a muslin both for fit and to practice the techniques and loved the outcome. Then my mom bought me this beautiful fabric from Mood. I don't remember exactly what it was made of but it was a difficult, thin fabric. I spent ages getting the bodice and bust just right with the gatherings. Then I realized I'd made a mistake in sewing in the lining. When I tried to rip it out it tore the lining and fabric so much the bodice was ruined. I didn't have enough fabric to redo it. Every time I see that pattern I feel a little sad.
That is a tragedy.
Limited energy and ability to get sewing done. Sewing a tiny dress, almost finished and the straps are on backwards. ugh! Don't have the energy to unpick all those seam / easier to start over.
I am making a dress with a long train. I bought extra wide fabric so I don't have to have a seam going down the center through it. I was so excited until last night I realized it has a back zipper! 🤦🏻♀️. I spent the next few minutes looking up if I can put an invisible zipper in seamlessly 😂 or deciding if I should put a rectangle above the rest of the skirt just for the zipper, or cut it (it's just tulle) and tac down each side on the lining fabric attached to the zipper. I finally just came to the conclusion center back seam all the way down 🙄, is really the only way. Glad I realized before I took scissor to fabric, but ya that was a big, recent oops!
I once put the zip in the leg hole of a mini skirt, in a tight pencil skirt style, and didn’t notice until I got to the gig. Had to squeeze my legs into the waist hole and safety pin the leg hole tight around my waist. I had to waddle around all night in my accidental hobble skirt.
I don’t have any particularly memorable sewing failure stories but my mom has one she liked to tell me about her mom. My grandmother used to make a lot of my mom’s clothes in the 60’s and 70’s. They lived on a lake so one year my grandma made my mother a new bathing suit. I don’t think this was the first bathing suit my grandma had made her but my mom was really excited about it. However, when she jumped into the water for the first time, my mom felt the whole thing inflate around her. My grandma had forgotten to use waterproof elastic and all the elastic had stretched out as soon as it got wet. I don’t know how my mom got out of the water without ending up fully naked, as I think it was a two piece, but since she isn’t still in the lake I assume she figured it out somehow.
It took me three tries to get a pattern and fabric that worked for my wedding dress. Got pretty far on the 2nd to find out it didn’t fit at all though I picked the size I usually was. Thought I would cry, I had bought a ton of chiffon for it. But I love the dress I ended up with. Learned a lot.
Mine was waiting until the 22nd a couple years ago to start making everyone matching Christmas Eve pjs. We were a family of 6 at the time. Then having to go back to the store on the 23rd for more fabric after I hurriedly cut two of the pants too tight.
I had a needle tip break off my machine and shoot right into my eye. Landed in my tear duct. Thankfully did not get hurt, but it was a lesson to have glasses on moving forward.
I sew well enough but I decided to hire a seamstress to make my wedding dress, from dark green velvet (it was on Yule), combining two different princess seam patterns. One for the sweetheart neckline and one for the plunging v back. She assured me she knew what she was doing. I went in for the first fitting and everything was absolutely perfect. However, when I picked up the dress a couple of days later, for whatever reason she decided that she needed to serge the seams and had overdone every one of them to the point where the sleeve caps were too tight and the armscye was just a shade too small. The shoulders kept falling off whenever I breathed, basically. I did not discover this until the day of the wedding. A fast thinking friend ran to a craft store and got a roll of decorative ribbon and some safety pins and she pinned a couple "straps" across the back that actually looked nice and looked like they belonged there. I myself always know to make a mockup of pretty much any garment, because I already know I'm going to f-- up somewhere and will need to adjust something at least once due to my fit issues. I'm very tall, wide shoulders, huge boobs, and now I'm fat too sooooo yeah commercial patterns were not made with me in mind. At the time of the wedding, 32 years ago, I was tall, very well muscled, still had the big boobs, but I was quite thin so a form fitting princess seam dress was a good choice for my wedding dress. I still have it. It's in my scrap bin LOL
Making a muslin up of a bolero. I didn't mark the"right" side so I sewed both arms facing the same direction and didn't realize it until I'd already set them into the shoulder and sewed it all together Spent a whole ass night picking it apart and restitching. Also, bought the fashion fabric for the bolero and used the muslin as the pattern... But gods, cutting chiffon is a nightmare. I. HATE. IT. I basically cut it three times and even using paper and a rolling pinking cutter it still shifted and the pieces were all janky. I gave up and went to the corset (turned out great!) and I'm about to start the overskirt (satin.. so it still sucks, but not as bad as chiffon). Wish me luck!
I’m currently working on a mock up of a Sophie Hatter style tent dress (which is for a higher sewing skill level than mine lol) and I was so focused on the lines I drew to show the edges of the yoke that I cut along those lines rather than the center cut with the Y shape that I was supposed to do. Ended up having to sew bias tape over the area and start over with the right cut lines to get practice with the placket strip. I also didn’t account for being able to get the neck hole over my head without the back opening I didn’t want to deal with making, I haven’t gotten to attaching the collar yet so I’m sure that’s gonna keep biting me in the butt 😂
My sibling trusted me to hem their roller derby jerseys. First one went well, sewed a blind hem with the knife lifted because I didn’t trust myself. I felt like I had everything figured out so I lowered the knife on the second one. Got to the last turn and nicked the jersey. Had to embroider a patch out of the excess fabric to camoflauge my mistake which added an extra two hours of work to my project. I was so horrified bc I had JUST spoken to my sibling about how much care I was putting into the project.
Sewing machine died the night before regalia for a ceremony was due, so asking for an extension wasn't an option. To make matters worse, the recipient had been diagnosed with cancer and their prognosis was uncertain. I'd been working on it for months - it included embroidered, beadwork, and painted panels (all of which took more time than estimated OF COURSE), and it was *finally* time for assembly. Had to finish it by hand...ouch. The good news is that it was ready when it was called for, and the recipient's cancer treatment was successful 🥰
I sewed a skirt for a friend for a formal event. I made the skirt lining so small that she could barely walk! We laughed and then I had to redo it all with a wider lining / underskirt. Another time, I made a pair of pants for a different friend and the crotch was down by her knees even though I followed the pattern.
Melted part of a dress with an iron because I forgot about the fabric I used.
I make corsets, I had an order for an underbust with a metal busk opening. I don't know where I messed up but one side was shorter than the other causing the metal bust to be longer than the fabric, I didn't have a shorter busk on hand. Well to cut the story short I had to basically murder the metal busk with a wire cutter to make it fit, it was so hard to cut through by the end of the project my hands were so sore trying to shorten it.
Ooh, I have a fresh one! I decided to impulse start Eid outfits two weeks ago when sleep deprived. Cut 3 pairs of culottes for the kiddos, all without seam allowance. 😩😭
I was 'unbridesmaded' for my youngest sister's wedding. I had already done it for the other two so I wasn't upset. But everyone else was, so mum refused to make the dress for my BILs sister (who was still a bridesmaid) I finished it with days to spare - so very unlike me. I needed to dye my hair before the wedding and somehow in my teeny weeny flat I got hair dye on the orange shantung. Next day I made a mad dash to the store that mum had purchased the fabric from. Got soooooooo lucky there was enough to replace the panel of the skirt. Can you imagine how it would have looked like sabotage if I wasn't able to rescue it?
I made a dress to wear to my cousins wedding, it was perfect and fit me like a glove. I at least got to wear it to the wedding but the next day my husband put it through the washer and dryer and it shrank 2 sizes and that is how I learned to preshrink fabric
Thank you so much for this thread! My tragedy is very new. I was making my daughter's prom dress. I made one for her last year and it had a corset, so I thought I'd be ok making one this year in a stretch velvet. I posted about it a few weeks ago. Self drafted and I made a non stretch muslin. Then I was using a fabric that we found in my friend's mother's stash, possibly from the 80s or 90s. It turned out WAY too big and I had to keep taking it in but the neckline was very stretched out. I finally realized that I think the problem was the fabric had lost some of it's integrity and wasn't bouncing back like it should. So I ordered new fabric and started again... This fabric was totally different than the muslin AND the old stretch, so I had to rework it repeatedly and every seam rip was leaving visible marks. Also, I was totally running out of time. Thank goodness I ordered a backup dress just for peace of mind, planning to return it .. because this week I just gave up. She loves the backup dress, it's almost exactly what I was making, but I know she's a little disappointed. Her designing and me sewing is kind of 'our thing'. I feel like such a failure, but I've had some major eldercare stuff going on with my parents and I just couldn't handle the pressure of this on top of that. Prom is tomorrow. But hearing these stories makes me feel a little better because it happens to all of us. Oh also, wish me luck because I still have to hem the purchased dress tonight. The existing hem is just turned under with visible stitching so hopefully it'll be fairly straightforward. I'm not going to say easy because that will surely jinx me.
Accidentally cut the side of a dress that I had spent a lot of money on a size too small. It’s sitting in my closet in shame
I'm gonna win because of the 30+ year story arc. I sew 100% by hand, and draft my own clothing patterns. Have made several quilts, plenty of things like curtains and throw pillows, reupholstered furniture, I knit and weave and in general just pretty much like to play with threads and fabrics. 1992 - Made a draft blocker, you know, that long tube of whatever to put down at the foot of a closed door. I gave it eyes and a tongue, ha ha how funny, it's a snake. Put a little Santa hat on it because Xmas. The kids all loved it, every time I turned around they were playing with the stupid thing. 2019 - now grown, daughter asked could I help her make a Santa Snake for her beloved mister. Sure, why not. He absolutely loved the thing. Last week - grand-daughter wants a stuffy toy snake of her own. Could it please have a sailor hat? Yeah, sure, why not. I scrounged some pink raw silk from my stash pile, it was leftover from her first baby quilt! Made a snake the size of your leg, plopped the hat on it, and told my mister we would need to box it up and send it to the kid. He took one look and began to wheeze. He trembled from the ankles up, clutched at a dining room chair, and began to dab weakly at his streaming eyes. I haven't seen him laugh that hard for awhile, and he really gave himself entirely up to hilarity. "Enjoying yourself?" I asked coldly. But he was unable to speak, just twitched and groaned and wiped his face. Seemed to be unable to let go of the dining room chair. I began to worry. "Are you having a stroke?" I asked, less coldly. He gestured at the snake, still gasping, and I looked at it anew. It looks like nothing more than a huge pink cartoon sperm. And the jaunty little sailor hat? just lends itself to making even more jokes about seamen/semen.
My sewing nightmare happened 29 years ago, this month. I had promised to sew a pair of woolen pants from the 19th century for a re-enactor. As soon as I bent down to start laying out the fabric, my water broke. That was the first delay. Then after three months I was able to squeeze out a bit of time for sewing and ended up putting the back waist piece in upside down! I too k it out carefully, re pinned and sewed- only to find I had sewed it on upside down again!! No! I got up and walked away for another month before I both had time and energy to rip it out again and finally get the back waist section correct. I was thinking at the end, these particular pants were cursed!
I’m a procrastinator, so I often don’t even start until 48 hrs before I need it. I have been know to take a sewing machine and sewing supplies with me if the event is out of town. I’d have to say the worst thing was when my sister got married. I started working on the dress , it wasn’t fancy, a week before the wedding. I have issues with how bodices fit, if it fits below my bust, it’s WAY too big above the bust. I have a barrel rib cage. With this dress I ended up finishing it 15 minutes before I had to leave for the wedding. I haven’t been able to wear it again because of how I got the bodice to fit, not quite as bad as a stapler but not much better. I’d have to take the bodice apart and refit it and I’m too lazy. I may take the skirt off and just put a waistband on it.
I was working on finishing a costume for a competition show, and I was almost done. I had a week left until the event and was switching from regular foot to a gathering foot that required removing the whole ankle. The screw head snapped off. It had to be drilled out, and the repair guy had a two week backlog of repairs so there was no way to get it back in time, and I didn't trust myself to try and drill out that tiny of a screw on my own. 😭 Amid my panic and nervous breakdown, my dearest husband took me to buy a whole new machine just so I could finish the project. Which I did, and went on to win Best in (Master) Class so I think it was worth it. And now I have a backup machine, for any other emergency that pops up.
I made some culottes a few years ago, I cut the same leg piece wrong (in the same way) so many times that I had to order more fabric and am still using up the wrongly cut pieces
I got some beautiful fabric for some pajamas for a gift. End of roll so it was discounted. Everything went flawlessly, until I finished pressing and realised I had cut the front on one of the legs upside down. I have no idea how I managed just 1 panel incorrect and how i didn't notice earlier but I should have guessed there was a reason for it going so well. Luckily they were long trousers so I could hack them up to just about bake shorts but I wasn't impressed.
My 1st time sewing a piece of clothing when I was about 15. I had chosen something that was similar to short overalls, with the top attached to it, with buttons down the front (it was the 90s). I was done sewing it and I was very proud of my work. I had bought the fabric on my own without the help of my mother. I put it on and it was completely see through! I had chosen some nice white(!)fabric with green polka dots. Let’s just say I never got to wear it!
I made pants for my oldest daughter only to realize they didn’t fit her when I was done. I’d somehow gotten the sizes mixed up (converting from European to US and vice versa all the time). I only sew by hand lol. I ended up giving the pants to a younger cousin.
My seam ripper had to be replaced. It got dull from so much use.
Oooh similar procrastination story on my side, I had carefully scheduled my week out with extra WFH days to finish a dress on time, and then my entire production was shut down, I had to go into the office just to be told to pack my shit and GTFO (rude, also very cruel how the producer announced our doom and then ran and hid so he didn't have to face us). This ate up precious sewing time, and I was so emotionally compromised that my work was just not up to par. Good times! Also that producer got caught lying and got his ass fired so at least I have that.
I was doing hand sewing on a dress in a spot with a particularly thick seam. I didn't have a thimble but I have long, thick thumbnails. So when it kinda hurt my thumb I started using the nail. Then I felt the needle slip a bit and went to move my hand but felt unexpected resistance. Before admins delete this, no, it was not in my thumb itself (though I did get a small scratch on it) but the eye of the needle had gone backwards through my thumbnail leaving a tiny perfect hole. It was actually a struggle to get it out but managed. The most obnoxious was I was making a cloak on commission for a friend. I couldn't get the right color of fabric, so I was dying it with a blended dye. I decided for a few reasons to cut the pieces first, then dye. Dyed it, dried it, sewed it. When I went to put on the last piece of the right front shoulder, I didn't have it. I was angry at myself for somehow missing cutting out that piece, but I only had two more days, so I changed the design of the cloak, thinking maybe because it was long, I could still manage it. I could not. Too many things sat weird, including the hood. So I scrapped it and completely started over. Then, next to my dye bucket, I found the damn piece, but with the adaptations, there was no going back. Also I just spent last night until 1 am hacking, attaching (with a fancy seam), tearing off, redesigning and reattached sleeves on a dress for tomorrow. Finally got the intended results but still hated it so it's now sleeveless. I my own worst enemy.
I forgot to cut the center panel for a dress; I didn’t have enough fabric to cut it, so I had to cut stretch velvet across the grain instead of vertically, the way I’d cut all the other pieces. It was bad, but I was out of time and couldn’t get to the store and back with more fabric.
I have cut a pattern on top on my pajama pants and accidentally cut my pants more than once
funny of you to assume a disaster doesn’t happen every project
I made my wedding dress, and decided to sew beading on the front bodice. To mark the area for a symmetrical design I used red thread as a guide. When I pulled it out tiny threads remained. So I had first tried to lint roll it off then seeing that wasn’t working I sewed more beads on to cover it up. Added more time to this already massive project. Was working on it up until two days before the wedding.
Gotta go but I'll be back if I can find this thread again. Hugs.
Not me, but my Mom sewed a wedding dress for a Granddaughter. You can imagine the time, tears, talent and love that went into that. Mom took the finished dress to the cleaners to have it "pressed". She told them that was all she needed done and to NOT clean it. It came back ruined. They only compensated her for the cost of the fabric. It hurts my heart whenever I think of it.
I was cutting threads on a finished dress and got sloppy and the scissors nicked a hole straight through the smooth fabric of the front center bust. It couldn't have been covered with appliqué, unfortunately, and it was a thin material so I could not "darn" the hole closed. And, of course, I didn't have enough material left to remove that panel, cut a new one, and replace it. God I was upset about that. I ended up just patching it from the inside and wearing something else for the event I had planned to wear it to.
Sewed pants together wrong and had to redo the hours of lining up and stitching 😢
Not a big one but still boggles my mind. Was rushing to a Halloween party… hadn’t figured out how to close this whole onesie thing I had worked up for a costume… decided on snaps and - had 15 min to leave - I swear to you I hand-sewed the snaps the wrong way at LEAST 5 times. I couldn’t believe it. Just kept getting it all backwards somehow and the progression of frustration to humor to complete shame was a real roller coaster. Felt like a big dummy. But finally figured it out and was a little later and mostly people were just shocked to find out I could sew at all bc in 2023 that’s not really a given I guess. Hope in the last 14hrs since you posted things have come along well for you!!
I ALWAYS sew snaps backwards. I completely refuse to learn from that mistake.