Got yelled at by a tailor in NYC and it fixed my cutting

I was at Mood Fabrics last month picking out some poly charmeuse for a dress and the tailor working there saw me holding the pattern wrong. He pointed at my fabric grain and goes "you're gonna twist that skirt so bad it'll look like a pretzel." I felt super dumb but he showed me how to lay it out on the bias instead. Now I always check grain direction before I cut anything and it's saved me from ruining six projects since then. Has anyone else gotten a brutal reality check from an experienced sewer?

2 comments

2 Comments

sandra69320d ago

Totally get what you mean. I had a similar moment at a quilting class years ago where the instructor looked at my seams and just said "those are gonna pop in the wash." I was so embarrassed but she was right. Since then I've been way more careful about pressing and finishing edges. It really does stick with you more when someone just tells you straight up instead of being soft about it.

john_johnson7520d ago

Yeah that's a real thing. It's like when you're learning to drive and someone finally yells at you for not checking your blind spot, and suddenly you never forget to do it again. We get stuck in our own little ways of doing stuff and we don't even realize we're messing up until someone who knows better just lays it out flat. It's humbling but it sticks with you way more than a polite suggestion ever would. I think most people need that kind of blunt truth at least once to really level up at something. It's like a shortcut to learning that you can't get from a YouTube video or a book.