Despite common belief, sewing is not necessarily easy. It takes a lot of time, practice, and patience. If you mess up, you have to take out the stitching and start over. The less practice you have, the more mistakes you'll make. When your friends find out you can sew, they tend to ask favors. Sometimes you offer it yourself. Odds are, more than one person makes a request at a time. The projects pile on, and your sewing room tends to end up covered in projects. Making space for the many projects can take time too. So here are a few ways you can help your friend who sews.
1. Be Patient
Sewing takes time. You don't need to be all over your friend's case in regards to your project. Maybe a reminder every once in a while, but you don't need to say something every day. Depending on the project, it could take a day, a week, or even a month to get the project done. Be patient.
2. Pace Your Projects
Please, PLEASE don't give us multiple projects if you can avoid it. The more projects we have, the more time it will take to get them done. Plus, if we have too many projects from friends, we have no time for our own. Most of the time, we might have at least three projects of our own to work on.
3. No Glitter
Please, no glitter. It gets all kinds of everywhere. Seriously. Not only does it get all over the machine, it gets all over you, your clothes, the room, the floor, and all kinds of in your clothes. If there's a lot of glitter, you get it in your eyes, mouth, and ears. As a bonus, you might inhale it too. It may seem pretty, but to anyone working with the stuff, it's just an annoyance.
4. Provide Any Materials You Can
If you don't provide it, that's not cool. You can't just expect your friend to make something for you without providing the materials. If you do, expect your friend to ask you to pay for them. A gift is one thing, but making something that you request is another. Materials include the fabric, thread, beads, buttons, ribbon, zippers, and anything else you could possibly need.
5. Listen
Your friend has been sewing a lot longer than you. If they say your project ideas are not going to work, they're not going to work. Listen to them. If your idea doesn't work, and your friend tries to follow through with it, they will be beyond frustrated. Please listen to your sewing friend. Don't make them do meaningless work. Remember how mistakes have to be taken out and redone? Yeah, that happens a lot more than you realize. If the thread is the same color as the fabric, that makes it near impossible to see the thread to rip out. This makes the process take even longer. Fighting with a useless process will become increasingly frustrating.
