Quality Sewing

I have just come in from my day job - you know the time I spend away from my sewing machine so that I can support the upkeep of my machine, my fabric collection, notions stash, etc! And for the last few days I have been musing on something my daughter kept saying to me ~ quality sewing. Now, how did the daughter I taught to sew say "quality sewing" back to me.....well, I was working on my Pinstripe Magic Collection (otherwise known as SWAP sewing) and I was debating whether or not to add rayon seam binding to the bottom of a hem on my skirt. Now in my head I knew that this would give the garment a more finished look but I wanted to wear the skirt the next day. It was getting late in the evening and every extra step meant more time that I didn't necessarily have. Having my daughter say "quality sewing" became like a mantra in my head. Of course, I added the rayon seam binding to the bottom hem, not just sewn on and hemmed down but folded in half, ironed, sewn by machine and then hand stitched. Lots of extra time but definitely worth it when I wore the skirt.

But the term quality sewing hasn't left my head since. So like Carrie Bradshaw in "Sex in the City" I want to ask a question. How long can you keep sewing without wanting to do quality sewing? And exactly what is quality sewing? Well, to me, it is the fine little details that insure that your garment has the finest construction. You know all of those details that cause a garment's completion date to be pushed back!!!! *LOL* Underlining, putting more than one row of stitching in a hem, Hong Kong finishing seams and not just serger finishing them, hand stitching a lining instead of bagging it. Anything that takes time and shows a respect for the construction of the garment ~ quality sewing.

Now how many of us engage in quality sewing? How many of us take the time to enjoy the process? How many of us enjoy knowing that the garments we are wearing have those quality details in them that others can't sew or begin to guess at? And is it truly worth our time and effort? I remember this article that was written in Threads. It showed a dress made straight out of the pattern following the pattern instructions and another version made that added all of those extra details (quality sewing). You could definitely tell that there was a difference in those two dresses. One just looked finer than the other. So I guess that is what I am going for....the finer looking garment and why I will continue to succumb to the mantra of "quality sewing!"