For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been locked into my sewing studio, by my own volition, I should add. Yes, it’s game time in the world of To a Tee, meaning that very soon (two weeks from now, gah!) Malena will travel to the south of Sweden, where I live, to do a two-day photo shoot for all the patterns in the book.
That means we have to sew a lot of T-shirts to showcase the myriad of style variations you can make using the five patterns in the book. So far I have sewn five versions, with at least four more to go. Ideally I would like to make ten styles, but that would probably require a last-minute all-nighter, which sounds both risky and exhausting.
The thing about sewing photo samples is that it’s a high-pressure situation in terms of execution. It has to look good, I mean really good, because less pristine finishes can bring the overall feel of the product down and even worse, imply that the pattern isn’t well executed.
It’s essentially about trust. So when doing sewing books and patterns, there has to be a commitment to excellence, which requires a lot of fouced attention, consideration and high-level sewing, even though the end-result might seem effortless
But there are also upsides to working like this, and that is the act of deliberate practice, a term that was coined by the Swedish psychologist Anders Ericsson, the man behind the 10,000 hour principle. Deliberate practice is his term for focused, intentional work aimed at improving your skills.
And for this project, each sample is another round of deliberate practice. So with every T-shirt, I found attaching the neckband becoming easier and more precise, the workflow getting faster, and more confident, plus I was even able to adjust my machine settings more intuitively, without having to do numerous samples for every step.
If you are curious to know more about our upcoming book, here is the story behind the To a Tee-book. It will be out in March of next year if all goes to plan and pretty soon you will be able to place a pre-order, so stay tuned for that, and fingers crossed I will be able to make all the samples in time!
