Outfit 35 | Sewing Project | Summer in October

I learned an interesting fact about candles recently. You know that frustrating habit that some candles have of tunneling as they burn? Even when you follow the rules and do the long initial burn, there goes the wick, sinking down the middle.

Well, it turns out, it may not be the candle's fault. It's the wick's. Low quality wicks don't radiate heat well enough, which results in just the center of the candle melting, despite your best attempts.

I've felt like a candle lately. I never seem to stop going, burning brightly as I work, but in the end I just go back to the persistent feeling of burned out. In an attempt to meet that new version of success, finish that task, make the most of our time, we spend so much energy focused on what we should or could do, but forget about ourselves.

This dress is the most complicated that I have made, and the silly thing is that the most complicated and "I really just want to quit" moment was the result of my skipping over a step and missing some gathers. Simple. I wasn't incompetent, I just missed a step. I needed to slow down, stop trying to force it to work, and figure out why it wasn't working (without jumping on blaming myself).

The one thing that truly saved me was my newly acquired walking foot.  Now I finally understand why they are absolutely critical  to sewing with knits, and avoiding the need to stop for a frustration-cry every five minutes. A walking foot is a big, clunky, sewing hero.

While it was nice to finally try this dress on, it's sometimes much nicer to wrap up in a blanket, gets some snacks, and rest, with no pressure to do. Remove the hyper-focus blinders, and remember that we are all just humans. Set ourselves up with love. And remember, there's probably a walking foot out there to help.

Pattern: M7894