Sew Frustrated

I have had an entirely frustrating sewing week. It all started last Sunday when I arrived for my Amy Butler bag class. I had decided well ahead of time that I wanted to make the cosmo bag. I had used the Amy Butler’s Style Stitches book as the guide for purchasing my fabric and notions. This was mistake #1. When I arrived in class I learned that we would be making a “simplified” version of the original bag. This simplified version would exclude a lot of the details that had originally drawn me to the bag, such as large interior pockets, a cute covered fabric button closure and some interfacing which gave the bag more structure. That also meant that my supplies were wrong.

I was pretty disappointed, so I told the instructor how I felt. I expressed my disappointment that we would not be making the original bag, but a simplified version. I felt that these changes should have been addressed in the class description, since it might have changed my mind about enrolling for the class. This was mistake #2. The instructor obviously did not take kindly to my suggestions and mostly ignored me for the remainder of the class.

This made it extremely difficult to get much work done during the 3.5 hour class time. I tried cutting out my pattern pieces as quickly as possible so I could get on to the sewing, but it was difficult and confusing since we had to share pattern pieces with other students. When it came time to sew I got pretty frustrated because the instructor only gave me vague instructions while she helped the other students with cutting, pinning and sewing their bags. I left class with only the handles attached to the lining and the side exterior pockets constructed.

Before leaving, the instructor vaguely walked me through the next 13 steps to complete the bag, but we were given no written handout or other guidelines to help us with completing it at home. I then spent many hours over the past week working on this bag based on the notes I had jotted down in class. Once I had gotten to the step to construct the lining I realized that I was missing some pieces for my bag. I am sure that I missed cutting them out because of the confusion caused by sharing pattern pieces. I had actually attached the lining fabric side pieces to the exterior of the bag because I didn’t actually have the exterior fabric side pieces. It is now too late to fix this since I have already clipped my seam allowances, so I can’t rip it apart and start over. Plus I don’t have enough fabric left or even the pattern piece to make the missing pieces.

I called my mother in utter frustration. She calmed me down and we discussed things rationally. I feel that though having the lining fabric on the outside of the bag does not hurt the integrity of the bag, it detracts from my vision of what I wanted. I decided that I would order more fabric, check out the Amy Butler’s Style Stitches book from the library, copy the pattern pieces onto pattern plastic and remake the bag following the direction in the book. I would also finish the first bag and give that one to my mom, since she doesn’t mind the fabric mix up.