Failure is an option

Today was meant to be a day of sewing glory. I was supposed to be uploading a post with gorgeous photos, all showing Grumbles happily gamboling through the city streets wearing her new denim pinafore. Once I had hit the Publish Post button I was going to retire to my blissfully comfortable bed of laurels, and wait for the raving comments to flood in.

But alas! I have no such photos. Why, you ask? Because I haven't made her an adorable new pinafore. I've made her a friggin denim TENT!

I haven't had such a major sewing disaster in a long time. I know exactly where I went wrong - I didn't bother measuring Grumbles, and blithely went ahead and cut out a large-ish size, thinking that it would mean she had room to grow. What I meant was grow upwards, but looking at the size of this pinafore, she could pack in a Santa-sized beer gut and still have plenty of room to grow outwards, too. The thing could have it's own Neighbourhood Watch program, it's that big.

Usually at this point I am filled with burning anger at my own stupid stupidity, but not this time. For one, I've gotten rid of my caffeine headache, which means I am much calmer now that it feels like my brain has finally stopped bouncing around in my head. It's a good thing, too, because after two days of that I was truly beginning to go a little bit loco!

Two: I've learnt a lesson - always take the time to measure PROPERLY, and not just rush in for the sake of getting the job done. Besides, since I'm going for total honesty, I may as well confess that the denim I chose was too heavy for summer. Not only would it have been too warm on those stinking hot summer days, but it was so weirdly stiff that the front and back of the pinafore stuck out as though they had their own private stratospheres to protect. Now I'm not sure what Grumble's stance on this would be, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to walk down the street wearing that thing and having people point at me in amusement, screeching "Look! A dress with a built-in denim ozone layer!"

So I shall put this pinafore away, and save it for when she is 10 or something, and can fill it out a bit more. Then I shall hunt for some nice, soft denim, measure Grumbles properly and start again. And chant continually to myself that if we never fail we never learn. And if that doesn't comfort me, then I shall reflect that it could be worse - I could have lost my employer $1.2 billion dollars. Now that's a boo boo that would be hard to recover from!