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Warning: A client in Seattle once told me my hand-sewn signatures were 'too perfect' and looked machine-made.
He said it over coffee after I delivered his custom journal, and it made me question if my focus on flawless technique was actually killing the soul of the work, you know?
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kellyr184mo ago
That's such a weird backhanded compliment to get... honestly sounds more like his problem than yours. Maybe try setting aside a "practice" signature where you let yourself be messy on purpose, just to see what happens. Sometimes you have to make the "flawed" version on purpose to remember it's okay. The soul is in the fact you made it by hand, not in how crooked the stitches are.
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jake_dixon4mo ago
Yeah, the "soul is in the fact you made it by hand" part really hits. But what does that even mean when someone points out a "flaw" they think ruins it? Is a crooked stitch on a quilt less soulful than a perfect one? Where's the line where something stops being charmingly handmade and just becomes "bad" to people who don't get it?
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evac723mo ago
Seattle's a weird town for that kind of feedback honestly. I had a friend who made pottery and someone told her her mugs were "too smooth" and that they preferred the ones that felt more "rustic." She ended up leaving a tiny thumbprint indent on the next batch on purpose, and those sold out first. Sometimes people can't tell the difference between intention and accident, so if you lean into the slight imperfection and make it clearly intentional, it's almost like a signature.
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