🧵 Sewing a Makeup Bag in a Hurry: Why It Never Goes to Plan
It’s never when I’m sewing for fun, or testing scraps, or aimlessly tinkering. No. It’s always when I absolutely, positively need to finish something properly before I leave the house in exactly one hour.
☕ It starts off calmly enough. I sit down with a cup of tea, full of quiet optimism. Just one makeup bag to finish. Zip’s prepped, seams are pressed. “Shouldn’t take long,” I say out loud...like a complete idiot.
✨ The first line of stitching goes in perfectly. I feel smug. Overconfident. And that’s when the machine strikes.
The bobbin runs out. Not at the end of a seam, obviously—midway through the visible topstitch. I reload. The top thread snaps. I rethread. The needle jams. I unjam. Something’s caught. I check the feed dogs. I clean out lint.
Still skipping. Still bunching. Still making that passive-aggressive clunking noise like it’s morally opposed to productivity. 😤 I threaten it with the quilting ruler!
I unpick. Or at least, I try. Because the seam ripper, which was literally in my hand five minutes ago, has vanished. I check the floor. Empty a tin. Open a drawer. Nothing. I had it. It can’t be far. Where the hell is it?
Open a box. Throw the contents all over the workspace. Still nothing. The table’s a state, the once neatly folded pile of fabric now looks like a jumble sale clearance bin. And then—of course—it’s there—right there, in its little slot, exactly where it should be. Just sitting there, smug and doing that thing where it pretends to whistle innocently, like it’s been minding its own business the whole time, probably rolling its eyes. As if it hasn’t just caused a full-scale meltdown and now wants to act like it’s been quietly helpful all along.
I unpick the seam, re-pin, and carry on. Time is ticking. I’ve got 20 minutes before I need to leave. There’s interfacing stuck to the iron, thread all over the floor, and my tea—cold now—has just been knocked sideways by the corner of a ruler. 🫣 I wipe it up with the edge of my sleeve like that’s a totally acceptable thing to do, glance at the clock, and feel the panic rise. The bag’s still not done.
🤬 I mutter things that would get me kicked off every polite sewing forum.
The zip buckles. The edge won’t line up. I unpick again. My hands are getting clammy and I’m muttering full conversations to myself. The bobbin wobbles like it’s trying to start something but I don’t have time to negotiate. I whisper, "Come on, be good, please behave, let’s just get through this together," like I'm talking to a toddler on the verge of a tantrum. No eye contact. No sudden movements. Just stitch and hope. I carry on, fuelled entirely by panic, stubbornness, and the rapidly ticking clock.
And then—finally—it goes through. Smooth, centred, smug as anything. Like it’s the hero of the story, and I’m the erratic side character with a bobbin vendetta and cold tea on my sleeve.
I press the final seam. Zip it up. Look at it. It’s lovely.
Except...except the bloody lining is inside out!!
I stare at it. Scissors in hand. Jaw slightly twitching. Is it too late to change careers? Maybe become a librarian? Or a postbox? Something quiet. Something that doesn’t involve zips, thread, or this much emotional damage.
🔁 And yet, we carry on. Not because we enjoy the madness. Not because we think sewing machine issues are character building. But because deep down, we know this is just what last-minute sewing looks like — chaos, caffeine, and blind optimism stitched together with hope.
If you’re feeling brave, you can view the actual makeup bags I was probably wrestling with here. 👜 Just don’t ask how long each one took.
