The Dressmaker

Lately, I have become completely obsessed with making my own clothes.

And when I say obsessed, I mean obsessed.

There is fabric everywhere. Patterns everywhere. Scraps of paper with measurements scribbled on them. Muslin draped over my mannequin. Pins in places where pins probably shouldn't be. Books stacked beside my bed. YouTube videos paused halfway through because apparently I now need to understand the engineering behind a sleeve cap before I can peacefully go to sleep.

And don't even get me started on Pinterest.

I can lose an entire evening there.

It usually starts innocently enough.

"I'm just looking for sleeve ideas."

Three hours later, I'm studying a 1950s Dior dress, researching princess seams, wondering whether I need horsehair braid, and somehow there are six yards of fabric sitting in my online shopping cart.

This hobby has gotten out of hand.

And I absolutely love it.

It Starts With an Idea

Before there is ever a dress, there is an idea.

Sometimes it comes from something I see. A neckline. A sleeve. The way a skirt moves. A beautiful fabric. A color combination I hadn't considered before.

And suddenly I can see it.

Not completely.

But enough.

I can imagine what it could become.

Then comes the hunt for fabric.

And I've learned that fabric matters.

Something can be beautiful on the bolt and completely wrong for the garment I have in mind. Some fabrics need structure. Others need room to move. Some drape beautifully. Some stand away from the body. Some stretch. Some absolutely refuse to cooperate.

I've learned about grainlines and bias, darts and ease, seam allowances and gathering ratios. I've learned that the lines of a garment aren't arbitrary. They shape it. They give it structure. They allow it to move with the person wearing it.

I've also learned that a dress can look spectacular on a mannequin and absolutely ridiculous on me.

Humbling.

Then comes pattern drafting.

Measurements.

Rulers.

Curves.

Pencils.

Erasers.

More measurements.

More erasing.

Tape.

So. Much. Tape.

Sometimes I drape muslin directly onto my mannequin, pinning and adjusting until the fabric begins to resemble what I saw in my head.

Then I try it on.

Nope.

Back to the table.

Adjust the dart.

Lower the waist.

Take a little from here.

Add a little there.

Redraw the pattern.

Cut another muslin.

Try again.

There is an incredible amount of patience involved in creating something that actually fits.

And somewhere in the middle of one of these marathon sewing sessions, it occurred to me:

God does this with me.

I Am Still Being Fitted

I think sometimes I expect God to work on me like fast fashion.

Quick.

Convenient.

Preferably inexpensive.

And could we please have it delivered by tomorrow?

But God doesn't seem nearly as interested in speed as I am.

He is a craftsman.

A Designer.

A Tailor.

And craftsmanship takes time.

"For we are God's handiwork..."—Ephesians 2:10

There are places in my life where He seems to pin something, step back, look at it, and say,

No. That isn't sitting right.

So He adjusts it.

And I don't always enjoy the adjustment.

Sometimes He removes something I thought belonged.

Sometimes He changes a line I had already decided was perfect.

Sometimes He takes in an area where there is too much of me—too much pride, too much control, too much impatience, too much self-reliance.

And sometimes He has to let something out because I've made myself too small.

Sometimes the fit is wrong because I'm trying to squeeze myself into a pattern that was never drafted for me.

That one will preach all by itself.

Then There's the Seam Ripper

Anyone who sews knows there is one tiny little tool that can destroy your happiness in seconds:

the seam ripper.

I hate that thing.

Mostly because if I'm holding it, something has gone terribly wrong.

Maybe I sewed the wrong pieces together.

Maybe I caught fabric in the seam.

Maybe the zipper looks awful.

Maybe I finished an entire section before realizing that I attached something backward.

There are few things more humbling than staring at twenty minutes of beautiful stitching and realizing you now have to spend forty-five minutes removing every single stitch.

One.

Tiny.

Stitch.

At.

A.

Time.

And yet, ripping out the seam isn't punishment.

It's correction.

That's different.

The seam ripper isn't destroying the garment.

It's making it possible to fix it.

I've had seasons of my life that felt exactly like that.

Things came apart.

Plans unraveled.

Relationships changed.

Doors closed.

Ideas I had invested enormous amounts of time into had to be abandoned.

And my first instinct was often:

God, why are You tearing this apart?

But sometimes what feels like destruction is actually the mercy of correction.

Because He can see the finished garment.

I can't.

Sometimes You Have to Start Over

I've had sewing projects where the mistake was fixable.

And I've had others where it absolutely was not.

I have cut something incorrectly and stared at it for an embarrassingly long time, hoping that through prayer, denial, or creative geometry, the missing fabric would somehow reappear.

It did not.

I've ripped entire garments apart.

I've redrafted patterns.

I've cut new pieces.

And yes, I have thrown things away.

That one hurts.

Because I immediately think about the fabric.

The money.

The HOURS.

Surely we can save this!

Sometimes we cannot.

And maybe that's another lesson I need.

Not everything has to be salvaged simply because I invested time in it.

There are things in life we keep trying to repair because we cannot bear the thought that all the effort might have been wasted.

But sometimes God says,

We're not repairing this one. We're starting again.

And starting again doesn't mean the first attempt was meaningless.

I learned from it.

My hands became more skilled.

My eye became sharper.

I understood construction better.

I learned what not to do next time.

The failed garment still taught the dressmaker something.

Maybe our failures do the same.

"Why Don't I Just Buy the Dress?"

There are moments—usually after midnight, hunched over my sewing machine with my back screaming at me—when I ask myself a perfectly reasonable question:

Why don't I just buy a dress?

Seriously.

I could open an app, find something cute for twenty bucks, click "Buy Now," and be done with this nonsense.

No drafting.

No fitting.

No seam ripping.

No discovering at 10:47 p.m. that I don't have enough fabric.

No trying to understand why one side of the bodice fits beautifully while the other side appears to be participating in a completely different project.

Just buy the dress.

But then...

• I would miss everything.

• I'd miss walking through the fabric store and finding the color.

• I'd miss touching different fabrics and imagining what they could become.

• I'd miss sketching.

• I'd miss changing my mind.

• I'd miss drafting the pattern.

• I'd miss the first fitting.

• I'd miss solving the problems.

• I'd miss learning something I didn't know yesterday.

• I'd miss watching a flat piece of fabric slowly become something with shape and movement and personality.

• I'd miss that incredible moment when I put on the finished garment, stand in front of the mirror, and think:

I made this.

The joy isn't only in the dress.

The joy is in the making.

And maybe that's something I have misunderstood about God.

Maybe He's Not Just Trying to Get Me Somewhere

I spend so much time asking God about the finished product.

• Where am I going?

• What is my purpose?

• When will this season change?

• When will this make sense?

• When will I finally become the woman I'm supposed to be?

• I want the finished dress.

God seems deeply interested in the making.

The measuring.

The cutting.

The fitting.

The correcting.

The waiting.

The ripping apart.

The starting over.

The tiny adjustments nobody else can see.

Maybe some things cannot be rushed because the process itself is producing something.

Patience.

Wisdom.

Humility.

Discernment.

Faith.

Trust.

Things I probably wouldn't order for myself.

Yet apparently they are necessary materials.

The Designer Knows the Pattern

One of the hardest parts of sewing is cutting beautiful fabric.

There is always that tiny moment before I make the first cut.

Because once the scissors go through it, there is no putting it back together.

I have to trust the pattern.

I have to believe that these strange-looking pieces will eventually make sense.

A curved piece here.

A dart there.

Something cut on the fold.

Something else cut on the bias.

Individually, some of the pieces don't look like much.

But the patternmaker knows where they belong.

And perhaps faith looks a little like laying yourself on the cutting table and trusting the One holding the pattern.

Because I don't always understand the pieces of my own life.

Some seasons seem completely disconnected from the others.

Some cuts feel unnecessary.

Some adjustments feel uncomfortable.

Some things I desperately want to keep are removed.

And there are moments when I would very much like to take the scissors out of God's hands and explain to Him how I think this garment should be constructed.

I have opinions.

Many of them.

Thankfully, God is not intimidated by my suggestions.

But He is also not obligated to follow them.

"Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand."—Isaiah 64:8

Different craft.

Same principle.

The material doesn't know what the Maker knows.

Still Under Construction

I have started wearing the clothes I make with a completely different kind of pride.

Not the look-what-I-bought kind.

It's deeper than that.

• Because I know what went into them.

• I know where the mistakes are.

• I know which seam had to be ripped out three times.

• I know where I ran out of fabric and had to get creative.

• I know the pattern adjustment nobody else will ever notice.

• I know the hours.

• I know the frustration.

• I know the love.

• And when I finally wear it, I don't just see a dress.

• I see the journey.

Maybe God sees something similar when He looks at us.

We tend to stare at the crooked seam.

He remembers how far we've come.

We see the place that had to be patched.

He sees restoration.

We see the part that still doesn't fit quite right.

He sees something still being tailored.

We see the discarded pieces and wonder what went wrong.

He sees what had to be removed so something better could take shape.

And perhaps this is why I have fallen so deeply in love with making clothes.

Because somewhere between the fabric and the patterns, the pins and the muslin, the sewing machine and that dreaded little seam ripper, I am being reminded of something I desperately need to remember:

I am not a finished garment.

I am still being made.

Still being fitted.

Still being adjusted.

Still learning how to surrender to the hands of the Designer.

There will probably be more seams He needs to rip out.

There will be lines He redraws.

There will be things He asks me to release.

There may even be seasons when He takes apart something I was certain was nearly finished.

And I will probably ask Him more than once,

"Do we really have to redo this part?"

But I am learning to trust His hands.

Because a good dressmaker doesn't make adjustments because she hates the garment.

She makes them because she knows what it can become.

And the God who began His work in me is not impatient at the sewing table.

He isn't rushing.

He isn't frustrated by how many fittings I require.

He isn't standing over me wondering why I haven't gotten it together yet.

He already sees what I cannot.

The finished work.

So for now, I'll stay on the fitting stand.

Pins, markings, crooked seams, seam rips, adjustments and all.

Because perhaps one of the most beautiful things about walking with God is realizing that the masterpiece isn't only what He makes in the end.

There is beauty in the making, too.