Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Sewing - not!

Yep, it's happened again. I was really looking forward to starting Saturday morning sewing classes in Coventry - only to come home to a returned cheque last night. Not enough people. I don't get this - Abakhan was packed out all weekend, in fact there was a queue waiting to get in. The Big Sewing Weekender sold out before I even knew about it (although I may have been double-booked that weekend anyway). So clearly there's demand. But you know what? I give up!

When I first did my OCNCE in machine knitting, it ran concurrently with a two-year sewing class run by the Butts technical college, run above what was a butcher's in Coventry Arcade. Had the course not folded when I completed my machine knitting - in fact, I had to pay £600 for the "pleasure" of not attending the second year of the MK course and had to take precious days off just to hand in courseworks - I would have enrolled on the sewing machine course toute suite. Of course, it had run for years for very little and I knew not of its existence, being, at that time, not inclined / too hard up to take advantage.

In 1998, I took a few lessons with Mum. No offence to her, but she had a tendency to take the work off me and do it herself - I seem to recall the only part of the skirt I did do was insert a zip. Then my sister announced her impending nuptials, and lessons were off the table whilst Mum made two bridesmaids dresses and a wedding gown - and the lessons were never resumed. She's more recently admitted she preferred making children's clothes anyway and had never heard of a full bust adjustment nor pre-shrinking the fabric.

There were the massive classes run in Coventry at the "new" college in Hillfields circa 2008 - which ended up moving to Coundon Court school, on a Wednesday night, the one night I can't commit to (what with running the Coventry Knit Wits). Good class but so big I could easily wait an hour for the teacher's attention. There was a suggestion I move to the Asian Sewing class instead, but I didn't really want to learn Asian sewing, whatever that might be!

Then there was the disastrous two terms with Warwickshire College in 2009-10 ish (I lose track of dates, it's down all in the blog somewhere), at Radford Semele. Only thing I learnt there was to bite my tongue every week, as I found the teacher unhelpful, rude and disorganised. There were a list of subjects, but it turned out she had no intention of teaching us anything unless it was piecemeal fashion. Alas, she's nowhere near retirement age (I think she was probably younger than me), so I assume she's still running her little sewing club (because that's all it amounts to - some of them had been going for YEARS) throughout my county. Complete waste of my time and money.

There's a class in Rugby, but it's full, and anyway I'm now too late to enrol (and again, it's a Wednesday night. What IS it with Wednesdays?!). There were two other classes in the Rugby area but both have closed. Of course, this news came AFTER I went online and bought two sewing bags, one for the overlocker and one for the sewing machine. I'm wondering if I can return or sell on the latter, I don't really need a sewing machine case as mine has a hard case, it would just be better for car transportation.

What do I want? A structured class where each week I learn something eg piping, or a lapped zip - and then we can all get on with our sewing projects. A course that runs any night except Weds, or at the weekend. If I could quit the job for two years and take such a class at uni, I would do.

Apparently, that's too much to ask of karma. Karma hates me.

Craftsy it is, then... Sigh... I'd much rather have a live, interactive person! One cannot ask a video questions, clear as it may be!

I was SO annoyed last night I went straight upstairs, put my painting t-shirt on (I no longer own painting trousers and anyway it was too hot for clothes really!) and painted the front bedroom. Then after a quick dinner, himself did the cutting in whilst I amused myself doing some more machine embroidery for a secret project. This morning I am still finding yellow emulsion everywhere, I look like I have a weird rash.

Current mood: annoyed

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