Last night I felt I floundered a bit when I was sewing with our younger son's girlfriend. She and I have tried several baby gift projects. The last time it was quilts and this time it's an owl pillow. I'd lost the pattern so I'd drawn one on parchment paper, and as she worked on cutting and sewing, I realized I'd done a terrible job and also didn't know how much to redo or if I should tell her we should start all over.
How to be encouraging while constantly adjusting the owl? I had no instinct for the balance. I'm a retired teacher, sure, but nobody would ever hire me to teach sewing. And I'm not so good at following directions or stating the steps to follow. I felt lost.
I wrote her an email this morning apologizing, and she denied she'd been frustrated. She said she thought she would pull apart and resew or make a new pattern herself. She is so completely kind that I'm not sure I believe her about the frustrating part, but I realize that what she described is sewing: you try it, it doesn't look right, there's too much material or too little, the sides aren't the same, and you redo and redo until you are satisfied with what you're looking at. I wanted to protect her, but she IS learning a lot by the old standby: trial and error.
I'm glad I apologized. I'm sure that was right speech. I just wish I'd had some right speech flowing last night when I was trying to help!
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