People often tell me how patient I am to hand stitch my work. I often counter that I am only patient with sewing, not with anything else (although that’s not really true*). We can all be patient doing something we love. It doesn’t require patience to get to the end of a good book as you are enjoying the act of reading. In the same way, I enjoy the act of sewing:

• the feel of the needle pulling a thread through cloth
• the patterns it makes
• the textures thread makes in the cloth
• the quietness
• the slowness
• the connection with the cloth, the thread, the needle
• the feeling of putting a bit of myself into my sewing

It isn’t about patience, it is about enjoying the process.

I was asked last week about why I sew by hand rather than by machine. I find this an odd question as my work wouldn’t be my work if I made it by machine. I couldn’t make it by machine. It would be completely different work. It wouldn’t be me.

Today, out walking, I figured out the perfect way to explain this:

It is like choosing to walk on a footpath rather than to drive on a road through the countryside. 

Just because there are sewing machines, and faster techniques, doesn’t mean I have to use them. Life isn’t about doing the most in the time available, it is about enjoying the process. I am not a machine. I refuse to confine my creativity within bounds of commercial productivity and speed.  I like slow.

*mostly my lack of patience occurs when people make statements about my personality or lifestyle based on the needle in my hand. I am actually a pretty patient person. Maybe that’s because I love slow sewing.