My mother has always loved to sew, and she made a lot of dresses for me and my sisters when we were growing up. Her routine became a familiar pattern – first she’d cut out the fabric and pin it together. Next, she would sit down at her sewing machine, which was set up on the dining room table, and the familiar whirring would begin. Almost invariably, at some point we’d hear some muttering. She’d get up from the dining room table and move to her favorite chair in the living room, trotting out her favorite sewing phrase “As you sew, so shall you rip!” (author unknown). It was a rare project that would be completed without some contact with the seam ripper.

Since I began beading, I have become only too familiar with the need to tear out stitches and re-do my work, especially in the designing phase. The last time I posted a blog I mentioned some ideas I had for the VintageStyle Jewelry special issue we’re currently working on. Of course those ideas have been reworked multiple times, the original concepts having turned out to be not so great. It’s amazing to me how something that seems like such a great idea can turn out to be so disappointing! Well, as they say, live and learn. Design and redesign. Sew and rip.

I hope that designing gets easier as time goes on, or that I at least learn to recognize when something isn’t going to work earlier in the process. But in the meantime, I will take my lessons as they come and try to avoid making the same mistakes twice.