While looking down my Facebook feed this morning, I found a link to this article on The Dumbing Down of the Quilting and Sewing Industry.
Oh, yes, I do so agree.
I know that mistakes slip through in my books and patterns sometimes, but it is my strongest desire that they do not! One of the hardest things in kissing a book goodbye and sending it off to the printers is that you KNOW you will have missed something, and it will go into print and be there to embarrass you forever more! (If you find a mistake in one of my publications, PLEASE let me know, because it can be corrected in a future printing.)
The standard of finishing is dropping dramatically, mostly because people just don’t have the skills or the inclination to do things properly anymore. I think this is partly brought about by living in a society where we just don’t tolerate things that take time. It needs to be quick, and if it is not quick enough, sometimes people cut corners to make it quick.
But no, there is so much satisfaction in learning to do something well. I personally get so much enjoyment from taking the time to do things properly. If I do want/need to rush, invariably I will make mistakes. Being the sort of person that I am, I can’t live with leaving things that are of a lower standard than I want them to be. And then mistakes will just need to be fixed, which usually takes more time and effort than doing it right the first time.
In terms of design, I really really push myself to come up with the best I can. When I design an embroidery, I never go with the first version. It can always be improved and if it is a moment of sheer inspiration, even a great first design can always be tweaked! This is something I try to teach my daughters for their school work. First draft is never the final draft!
Embroidery takes time. Especially the sort of embroidery that I enjoy and have in my books. So probably you, my lovely readers, are in the same choir that I am. We don’t mind if a beautiful project takes effort and time, because we actually enjoy that. I do hope though, that as time goes on, society’s need for quick doesn’t mean that no-one else joins our choir.
This post is a little half-baked as I really haven’t had the time to think it through a lot. However, dropping standards IS something I have noticed.
I think, for me, it all comes back to the old adage: If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.
What do you think about this?
White Threads is the blog of Yvette Stanton, the author, designer, publisher behind Vetty Creations' quality needlework books and embroidery products.
I agree heartily – well, I agree with a heavy heart. Everywhere you look, people are cutting corners and removing skills from the community. Can’t be bothered learning how to conjugate a verb? Don’t bother – just turn a noun into a verb. Detailed carpentry too time consuming? Don’t bother with that pesky miter corner – just ram the timber in and paint over it. It’s also about money. Think you deserve red meat every night for under $1 a serve? No problem, madam, we’ll run the cattle through a feedlot, torment them terribly and have an awful environmental impact so that you can overcook it and have it with mash.
We are daily becoming dumber and there seems no way to reverse this – or even much enthusiasm to do so.
Thanks so much Yvette for voicing something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I taught the Natty Knitters that we should do our best to keep quality and reality in our project. However, we accepted everything that came in, because that was a commitment that we made for a community art project, and I ‘worked in’ all donations. However, I am totally dismayed by the dumbing down of work, especially when very basic things are categorised as ‘fantastic’ or ‘amazing’ when they are not those things. We need to celebrate skill and continue to make it possible for people to rise up through the skill levels if they wish, and remark ecstatically on REALLY skillful things, not just everything. Being so over the top about very basic offerings does a dis-service to all of us who DO practice our skills until they are exquisite. My mother (a court dressmaker and tailoress in a fashion house in Bond Street, London, where EVERYTHING was hand executed so all skills had to be perfected before they were allowed onto the very high end garments they made) also drummed into me your adage! I have never forgotten she used to examine my work, which had been passed by my teacher, as not passing her high standards!! This used to annoy me at the time, but I remember getting it right in the end just to show her I could.
An excellent post! I put in a comment about variable made goods on Etsy selling for decent prices, and how all sorts of people call themselves an artist, regardless of experience and skill, and I’m going to Share your post on FB.
Hear, hear Yvette! First draft is never the final draft – learning only comes through practice not getting immediate praise and “finishing” with out trying to make it the best you can do. I agree too with Kathy, I think its happening every where. Just have a look at most of the clothing for sale in the major retailers in Australia. Its shoddy workmanship, very poor fabrics, poor cutting out and design. But people still buy it because its cheap! Problem of a disposable culture.
Oh my gosh! Did you ever hit a tender spot for me too! I’m mostly a quilter, hand, machine either one. But I also do quite a bit of handwork such as you teach. It’s not the end product that I enjoy — it’s the doing of the project. And the dumbing down…….well, that’s everywhere! Writing, printing, spelling, handwriting, needlework, knitting, types of yarns, cheaper fabrics, cheap dyes, loose weave when you desire tight weave…….I could go on and on…….but I won’t ………… because we all know about it.
You are welcome to your rant! And thanks for allowing me to have mine!
I am 100% in agreement. I just returned from the International Quilt Market ( where shop owners go to buy inventory). I was amazed at the amount of crap there is out there. And I am most disturbed by all the devices that seem to be designed to remove every last ounce of work required to create a quilt. It seems to me that we are one step away from just hiring someone to make the item for us so that we can slap our names on it and claim ownership. To me the real joy of any craft is in the actual work itself. I am not perfect in my quilting or my knitting or my handwork, but that is the goal. Otherwise what is the point?
My Grandmother taught me to embroidery, and I still measure my work by hers – which is so good that even though we know we need to pay attention to it, we still put one of her tablecloths on the table upside down because the back is as beautiful as the front!
And in my other life I am a copy editor – I know how hard it is to copy edit your own work, and that is why, really, not only should the first draft not be the only draft, but somewhere in the process, someone other than the original author should go through it. I suspect that part of the problem is that now every desk has a computer on it, preparing text for publication is no longer a profession. It’s been tacked on to the task of researching and writing, and is therefore being done by people who would rather be doing something else..
Of course, I agree 100%. I also myself spend a lot of time trying to do what I consider to be a good design. It is the same when I go to the kit instructions. And it is for this reason that I really enjoy your books. The quality of the embroidery, the designs, the instructions and the layout is outstanding. Thank you for all the effort you put in making your beautiful books.
Thanks for the link–I had not read that article, and I am happy I got to see it. YES. I think partly this is because sewing and embroidery got so popular so quickly–suddenly lots of people want to sew, they never have before, and there is a lot of money to be made from them. It’s easier to give them junk, and they won’t know the difference for a while.
Then yes, we have the part where we want it all now! We want to make cute stuff and we want it now–and, well, sewing is not really about ‘now’ most of the time.
I see so many sewing books out there now. At first I got excited because I love sewing and I was happy to see more books. But they are nearly all the same—they have 20 quick projects (the same projects) with little detail work, and half the time you know they’ll fall apart or won’t fit. Sigh.