Posted on 24/02/2023 in Dorothy Says
Sew What Do I Do? (Pt 1)
6-minute read
Hello you.
I’m going through an existential crisis and could do with your help to decide what to do.
I need you to bear with me for a bit, though, while I explain.
I need some new cushion covers. The cushions I have are more than a decade old. . . actually, I think most of them hail from before my husband and I got together and we had separate houses, so possibly even 17 years old.
They’re clean, but worn. And as part of our current house-sprucing up activities, I’ve accepted that I need new cushion covers.
Now, this shouldn’t cause any type of existential crises, right? Wrong.
The thing is, I used to have a bit of a cushion habit. I was always in search of the perfect cushion, on a mission to find the optimum cushion pad to material ratio and nothing could stop me from acquiring more and more cushions in this quest.
Trust me when I say I have A LOT of cushions. And they need updating. But cushion covers are expensive. EXPENSIVE! And aside from the price of them, none of them are in designs that I like.
And now, let me tell you that in my house there is a sewing machine. Problem solved, yes? I can run up cushion covers quicker than my lovely editor can say, ‘shouldn’t you be writing your next book?’
No. That is the short answer.
Because I can’t use a sewing machine. I can’t even thread a sewing machine. Believe me, I’ve tried. A few years ago I tried to learn via YouTube videos and I thought I’d been really successful – until it unthreaded itself mid-seam sew, and I realised that:
- a) I hadn’t actually managed to thread it properly
and
- b) This activity was too frustrating for me to even think about doing it EVER again.
But, you know, cushion covers. Cushion covers that, if I made them myself, would be a third of the price of the ones I could buy even if I factor in material, thread and electricity.
Hello existential crisis as I try to work out what to do.
Do I sign up for proper lessons, which would involve being in a small room with other people, something that fills me with dread since my already-there aversion to small spaces and lots of people has only got worse over the last few years?
Or do I go back to YouTube and stick with it until I get it? Bearing in mind I will spend much time very, very frustrated.
I honestly don’t know what to do.
Of course, the decision would be easier if I could come up with a character who was a sewing whiz because traditionally, whenever a character has an important hobby or occupation, I take up said activity so I can write authentically about it.
With That Girl From Nowhere, I took lessons in jewellery making so I could write with authenticity about Clemency’s job; I learnt to knit for group bonding scenes in The Friend, I took up a lot of baking for That Day You Left(previously The Flavours of Love); and for Tell Me Your Secret I took up pottery for Pieta’s self-soothing self-therapy.
And for My Other Husband, I started teaching myself about screenwriting then, I decided to get some proper lessons in it. In the book, Cleo Forsum has created The Baking Detective series of books and then she adapts them for the screen. I wanted to write authentically about how screenwriting differs from novel writing so I started teaching myself how to do it.
Then I decided to get some proper training in screen adaptation and everything was so much easier to grasp when explained directly to me by an expert*. And a whole lot speedier, which meant I didn’t spend hours and hours I could spend writing trying to learn how to write for television.
Which makes me think if I got proper sewing lessons I may just get to the lovely new homemade cushion covers part of my life that bit quicker.
Unfortunately, my next two main characters already have their quirks decided and it ain’t sewing so I can’t make myself take lessons in the name of research.
Anyways, I’m still dilemma-rised. What do I do?
I’ll let you know next time what most of you think I should do and what I’m actually going to do. ; )
Thanks in advance, divine people.
Talk to you soon.
Dorothy x
(Please excuse typos, I’m only human!)
PS Don’t forget: you can pre-order a signed copy of My Other Husband here and unsigned copies here and here to make sure it arrives in your life as soon as possible after it’s released.
