Oops!

One of my remits for this blog, noted in my little ribboned notebook and written on a train journey, is to be honest. This includes not bragging or showing off and to acknowledge my failures in the kitchen or otherwise. The last thing I wanted to create was something similar to certain women’s magazines or other food magazines or blogs where everything always turns out perfectly for the smug looking people and everyone looks amazing all the time in their flawless make up wearing their high heeled shoes to put the bins out. That’s not real and life is not like that. Those stories and images I guess are supposed to be inspirational but they can be very false and demoralising, especially when you get the perfect house for Christmas with the little hand made decorations hanging on the tree and the smiling angelic children, you know the thing.

I can’t say I will never blow my own trumpet, and my chicken and bacon turnovers were pretty delicious last night, but here goes with the honesty. What a wally! After very carefully pinning and cutting out the pieces for my top I am making, I realise I have cut two right sides or two left sides…whatever, there is never going to be a complete top unless half of it is inside out. It’s kind of not my fault, but it is. I couldn’t follow the pattern layout for cutting out in one go as I was using two separate remnants of material. I was so focused on getting the flowering pattern going the right way on each piece I completely forgot that one of each piece should be cut right side up and the other wrong side up. I have no more of this material and cannot get any more the same. Still kicking myself about it but I am reminded of my own advice in an earlier blog post. We should never stop learning and we shouldn’t not try to do something just because we are terrible at it to start with. I don’t think I’m a terrible sewer, but I clearly still have a lot to learn.

So this top that is already doomed to failure before I even start sewing, I have decided I am going to carry on with…. in its strange inside outside pattern. Why I hear you ask? I do feel a bit despondent about it but I’m thinking if I practise the sewing part on this one I can then use some other material I have to make a perfect version of the same second time around. In my head top number 2 is so phenomenal everyone will want one (think I am setting myself up for disappointment again). But then again the inside outside version too could become a thing. Haven’t a lot of brilliant inventions been created by a mistake? Yay I am an inventor not a disaster… perhaps!?

Sometimes we can get good at things and sometimes we just are good at things. Cooking was always something that came fairly naturally to me and I think it’s a lot easier than sewing. Today I did a lovely online yoga class in the garden together with the birds singing. Yoga you just do to the best of your ability and that’s it. It’s not really about being good or bad, it’s about being in the zone. I really like that.

My biggest triumph of the day and the thing that I was best at was tidying out all the old cupboards in the garage. It seems I am very good at tidying. We have about 4 boxes for the charity shop now of old mugs and cutlery etc. I even cleaned down all the surfaces inside and outside all the cupboards and hoovered the old bits of carpet we keep laid out on the floor. My halo is shining and my husband is very happy as he likes to exercise in the garage not surrounded by piles of boxes and other junk.

I hope you’ve all had a nice day and no disasters have befallen you in your home projects. Keep smiling, keep healthy! Xx