Growth Mindset Is Catching

Today I grew my growth mindset. I have been needing a new laptop carrier as my old one is just too small to carry everything I need during the day. Anyway, I had a ton of scrap fabric on hand and decided I would give it a go at making my own...

You can see here how well that ended up working out for me.

It was during my first attempt in making this bag that I made 3 very important realizations:

1. I don't know how to sew zippers

2. I have never used interfacing before

3. I don't have strong enough needles

This first attempt took me 6+ hours from the time I printed the pattern to my final frustrated sigh when I had to completely rip out my zipper because it was upside down. Talk about a serious fail.

But, I knew that this 6+ hour experience even if it resulted in failure taught me some major lessons I could use if I tried to make another bag. I need to make sure my zipper is facing the right way before sewing it down, the interfacing needs to be completely attached on the glue side, not the smooth one, and I need to use a stronger needle or have plenty of extras on hand. Now, many people would just stop and give up after seemingly wasting all of this time, but I chose a different path.

I decided I would try again and use the failures from the first bag to make the 2.0 version even better. In my second attempt it only took me about 2 hours to put it all together and this time my zipper was right side up and fully functional.

It may be a small victory, but it felt like I won first place. I look back at this experience and I am glad that I didn't accept failure, that I used my mistakes to push forward, and I know if I were to make this bag again it would only get better from here.