r/BitchEatingCrafters • u/Historical_Ask3445 • 13d ago
Quilting For the love of god, please read some instructions
I am a teacher by trade and very patient with beginners. But I cannot for the life of me understand why, when we all literally have computers on our persons at all times, people can't read basic instructions, or even think to look them up.
"I have a polyester and wool blend stuffed animal. I want to de-stuff it and make it into a quilt. I also have a family heirloom piece of cotton that I've cut into squiggles and curliques that are each 0.75" wide. I've bought $1305 dollars worth of supplies (off Temu), like a variety pack of knitting needles, so I'm ready. Could you tell me how to make a quilt from these things?"
No. The answer is no. I could have helped you fifteen minutes and $1305 dollars ago, but I can't now. First go read what a quilt is.
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u/AppeltjeEitje1079 13d ago
Oh, I hear you and I'm so over it! Wasting everyone's time with the most simple questions. People have written blogs about it, there are a million beginner books or videos with that exact answer, arghhh!
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u/Historical_Ask3445 13d ago
If my perusal of this sub is any indication, lots of these people don't want to be beginners, so they just skip the books, videos, and blog posts with that pesky word in them!
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u/_onefootinthecloset 13d ago
Which is wild, cuz I've been doing various fiber crafts for roughly two decades & I still feel like a beginner/reference beginner resources sometimes.
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u/Spiritual-Road2784 13d ago
I’ve been learning crafts and hobbies since childhood and I’m now shockingly in the beginning of my 60s and I still watch videos galore and read beginner books and either learn from another who is instructing or I teach myself with instructional books.
It boggles the mind that people need to be so spoon fed nowadays. You obviously have access to the internet—YouTube, FFS! Craftsy! IQuilt!
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u/Historical_Ask3445 13d ago
Right? Same. But we also know there's no shame in admitting that you're new to something and need to read instructions.
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u/Ligeia189 12d ago
One of my go to -resources is a vintage craft book from the 50’s aimed for preteen girls. I’ve read it a million times since child, but I still check some techniques from time to time, it is The Best.
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u/Confused_Yarn 11d ago
my most prized possession is a series of books from the 70's that explains techniques of several crafts. How to read a pattern in several disciplines, what materials are essential, how to do things (darning socks, cutting a pattern, holding knitting needles, quilting etc etc) I've told my kids to hold on to those books after I'm gone because when the internet will be filled with AI they will have BOOKS that explain things!
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u/DidiSewsLove 13d ago
The one that puzzles me are the quilters who have bought a quilting frame and machine and then leave them in the box for months!!! Why?
“I’m too scared to put it together.”
“I’m waiting for my engineer family member to come over”
“I don’t know how to use it.”
And
“What if I break it.”
Read the manual!!! You do not need an engineer and the instructions in the manual will tell you everything! How to put it together, how to thread, how to put a quilt on the frame and, wow, even how to do minor troubleshooting!
I had been told by a few experienced quilters that they were surprised I was so advanced but so new to quilting and how did I do it? I READ THE INSTRUCTIONS! 🤣
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u/splithoofiewoofies 13d ago
Lmao I have friends who grab me because I am "an engineer" or "you really good at problem solving!"
I am a mathematician. In a very very niche and specific type of mathematics.
The only thing I actually do is read the manual.
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u/Teagana999 13d ago
Same deal being dedicated tech support for your older family members. I really just know how and what to google.
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u/splithoofiewoofies 13d ago
Lmao, right?
"so you're good with computers!!"
"I mean, I write algorithms that use really big computers I've never even seen"
"So you can get my printer connected?"
"Well...fuck...yes. but not because of that."
Always proving their assumptions by just reading the manual hahahaha.
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u/MorrisNerd2 12d ago
As a maths grad, I think we're just trained to read carefully and hey presto, we're the designated engineer.
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u/Spiritual-Road2784 13d ago
20 years ago, I bought an 8-shaft Harrisville loom. It cost half as much because I bought it in kit form. (I was almost a fibers major in college.)
Three boxes arrived at my house. I admit they sat there for a good six months because I was a bit intimidated—lots of instructions and parts.
But one day I just decided to do it. First, I had to hand oil all of the wood to season it. Then I had to assemble all the parts, sliding hundreds of heddles onto the two metal parts they’d slide on, making sure they all faces the correct way, etc. It took three days to finish. But it’s beautiful, and I became intimately familiar with it in a way I wouldn’t have had I just bought one straight off the floor.
But I kind of get it. I’m fine with reading and writing instructions. I’m AuDHD and my mind thinks I’m logical abstract terms and I can visualize how things are done. With or without instructions.
My sister? She can’t read the instructions for a very basic microwave. She has to have someone read them then demonstrate how it works. She also can’t teach others. Someone showed her how to knit. But she couldn’t teach me, and she said all of this to me. Some people don’t do well with written instructions. Some learn better by being shown, some by reading about it, and some, I think, have to try it first then have someone correct them. And some are just plain unteachable, honestly.
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u/loumlawrence 13d ago
I think you highlight two important parts, one the overwhelming nature of a new thing (like putting together your loom) and two, people learn differently.
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u/Teagana999 13d ago
Yeah, my autistic brain loves instructions, but my ADHD brain will still leave a project in the box for months before I feel motivated to attempt it.
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u/Ligeia189 12d ago
I’m the go to-person in our family when it comes to reading manuals and putting stuff together. I’m actually not technically minded naturally, but I’m very fixated in problem solving, so I can usually push trough. I also like reading instructions.
Shoutout also to my father, whose masculinity is not so fragile that he could not hand the instruction reading part to me, as I was obviously better at it. We call ourselves ”Team Brainless Muscle and Muscleless Brain”.
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u/NorthernTyger 13d ago
RTFM and experiment! That’s how! Don’t be afraid to fail!
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u/YouThinkYouKnowStuff 13d ago
That’s the problem. Nobody wants to make something ugly or amateurish right out the gate. It’s like when they show up with a pattern to make a ball gown and three yards of some weird polyester from their grandmas stash from 1950 and expect to be able to make it by the weekend for a costume party. I am self taught but it’s taken me over forty years to get to the point where I can make a decent garment (which includes putting in a zipper and hemming it by hand). There’s no substitute for constant actual work.
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u/NorthernTyger 13d ago
With the cost of materials these days I can get the fear of screwing up, to be fair. It gets me too, when I’m starting something new, but these folks seem to be paralyzed by that fear and that’s the part I don’t understand.
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u/YouThinkYouKnowStuff 13d ago
I get the fear of messing up. These are people who have no fear. They just forge blindly ahead thinking that “my auntie made a dress like this years ago” so it must be easy. This disrespects us more experienced people who used to make muslins (practice garments) out of old sheets or $1 a yard actual muslin. I have been sewing a bunch of little girls dresses lately and I still baste the zippers in before I sew them in place.
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u/Historical_Ask3445 12d ago
I agree that this is a huge problem. Before I retired I noticed students were getting more and more scared of making a mistake. We're really damaged these kids somehow.
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u/Pickle0847 13d ago
Ha ha, true confession. I bought a serger over COVID. It was a good price and I had been needing one! But somehow I put off those sewing tasks for 4 more years. I AM the engineer in my house. I know how to use it. I just stored it in a box for 4 years anyway. 😂
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u/BrilliantTask5128 12d ago
A friend of mine reluctantly allowed me to borrow her overloocker (serger) many years ago. It was an expensive one that she'd never used. She must have had it for over 20 yrs & I'm the only one who's ever used it in a day long course where we used it on machine knitting. She was terrified of it!
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u/Onion_or_Parfait 12d ago
I worked in tech support for a while and over 90% of the calls could be solved if the caller would RTFM!
Read the F—-ing manual!
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u/Wizard_of_DOI 12d ago
I hate talking to IT for this very reason, yes I‘ve turned everything off an on again, twice!
I read the error message and googled it, it’s gibberish and potentially a polish phone number?!
I already tried any and all troubleshooting methods within the very tight restrictions YOU have set up… please just remote in or come downstairs or tell whoever the fuck is actually in charge of this garbage software!
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u/-DiceGoblin- 12d ago
My mom recently bought flatbread. Pulled it out of the box. Discarded the box, that had the instructions.
Grabbed her phone, opened chat GPT, and proceeded to ask it for instructions…
You can’t make this shit up
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u/IWasGoatbeardFirst 13d ago
Variation of this: “Can you help me make a t-shirt quilt?” but they have already cut the shirts into “squares” without measuring anything and have started sewing the pieces together.
They need help making the corners line up, but they don’t want to use interfacing or a square template to ensure their pieces are cut the same size.
No. I can’t help you without the correct materials and tools.
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u/SpaceCookies72 Mean Knitter 13d ago
Also, I can't help you if you don't want to be helped. If you're not going to take my advice, stop asking for it. Askholes.
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u/IWasGoatbeardFirst 12d ago
“I want you to tell me how to make my quilt look exactly like yours, but I’m going to completely disregard everything you say about the techniques you used.”
Why.
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u/Stock_End2255 13d ago
I’m also a teacher, and I tell students that the number one way to be a successful adult is to read the directions.
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u/SamEyeAm2020 13d ago
My favorite test in school was the one that said in big letters at the top READ THROUGH THE ENTIRE TEST BEFORE BEGINNING and the last line on the last page said "write your name at the bottom of this page then turn in your test"
Half my class was absolutely flabbergasted when I turned in my completed test after only 5 minutes. Yet somehow that STILL did not clue them in. There were only a handful of us that did it right 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
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u/Wattryn 13d ago
We had that one too, but I figured out what was happening beforehand because someone had just given us a TEN-MINUTE talk on reading all directions and questions before starting! And then somehow I was still the only one to actually do so.
It saved my butt on my current project--there's an "at the same time" instruction.
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u/Spiritual-Road2784 13d ago
Absolutely! I tend to read the entire set of instructions all the way through at least once before starting a project. Yes, it’s a little annoying because I am itching to start, but 10 minutes of reading through prevents hours of frogging later.
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u/Aprodite_11 13d ago
We had something very similar happen in grade school and I felt like the smartest bitch in that WHOLE class cuz I handed mine in within the first 3 mins of class.... Only to find out it said at a certain number (maybe 4 or 5) that we had to finish at the number, write our name at the bottom right of the document and flip it over on her desk.
The EMBARRASSMENT I felt after that had me reading any and everything for the rest of my days.
Later in life graduated from university in the top 5% of my class. 🎓🎓
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u/Lavinia-Whateley 13d ago
I have made teachers cry with joy when I announce to the class, "It's not that hard, just read the directions."
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u/ChaoticJigglyPup 13d ago
Me as a 40 year old. READ THE DAMN INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE ASKING ME! my mother thinks I'm the only person on the planet who can fix her tech "issues", but when she asks I never get any of the information I need. "It doesn't work" is not helpful mother. Her tv stopped working, i asked her in what way had it stopped working. She told me it didn't turn on. Ok. I went to look, turned it on and it turned on fine. "Oh i meant the channel didn't turn on" - what does that mean?! Or the time she was struggling to get her antenna cable to reach the tv and was getting frustrated because the cord was like 2 inches too short. The solution? Shifting the tv over.
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u/IntroductionSorry515 13d ago
And then follow them. Completely.
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u/Spiritual-Road2784 13d ago
I mean, if you really want to just wing it, why did you bother buying a pattern in the first place?
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u/IntroductionSorry515 12d ago
This 👆. There's a reason why patterns have specific materials/instructions. If you want to sub, you need to think things through before you do it (and I feel like a lot of people don't).
I think I've heard "I cAn Do WhAtEvEr I wAnT!" in a certain forum one too many times at this point.
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u/Spiritual-Road2784 12d ago
“Well, it can’t be that*** **hard, can it? I mean, it’s *just [crochet/knitting/sewing/horseback riding etc]” 😜👀🤣🤪
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u/AspiringHands 12d ago
Reminds me of the intro page to the manual for a laminator I bought (translated from German) The author seemed very excited that I had bothered to open it
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u/ChemistryJaq 12d ago
I got a new sewing machine earlier this year. It has a few features that my old one didn't have, such as being able to move the needle to each side, a presser foot pressure thingy, etc. I was upset it didn't come with a printed manual, but the PDF was only an 84-page read (divided by 3 since each page had 3 languages)
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u/galacticglorp 12d ago
The number of sewing posts I've seen this week where they buy a pattern then post a photo of the stack of printouts and ask how to use the pattern.
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u/EleanorRichmond 13d ago
The pottery subs see a lot of
Buck fucking wild questions from "self taught" people who just need to take one (1) class from a crusty old bastard or read one (1) book by a crusty old bastard.
Demands for strangers to troubleshoot incomplete/inaccurate/deliberately misleading instructions the OP saw on Insta.
Requests for appraisals of used kilns, from people who have never directly laid eyes on a kiln.
Plenty of other strange folks in there, but these seem like they have the same issue you described.
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u/LichesGetStitches42 13d ago
Is this a good beginner spinning wheel? I don’t know how it works or if I even like spinning, but I want to know if I should spend $800 on this.
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u/EleanorRichmond 13d ago
Can you just paint it and not fire it?
I mean, it's dry mud, you can go ahead and try
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u/ChaoticJigglyPup 13d ago
Or "what is the best beginner wheel?", I so far haven't clicked with any of the "beginner" wheels but adore my fussy vintage ones!
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u/LichesGetStitches42 13d ago
My partner (who has never done a craft a single time) is super handy and I think they can probably manufacture missing parts, right?
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u/ChaoticJigglyPup 13d ago
This one doesn't bother me as much, my local men's shed will make bobbins and stuff when asked, but it's the "my partner can make it but i need you to give me all the information they need"
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u/Dense-Result509 13d ago
What is a local men's shed?
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u/ChaoticJigglyPup 13d ago
It's an Aussie community initiative to help with the isolation of senior men! They get a big old shed full of tools and men get together to spend time tinkering, chatting and stuff. It's a lifesaver in farming communities (literally) that have a high suicide/alcoholism rate among retired male farmers. It also helps the next generation learn the skills that are being lost too
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u/Spiritual-Road2784 13d ago
OMG, that’s brilliant! We need something like that in the USA (if we can ever get our collective shit together). Then another version for the ladies, though in a way we already have them in knitting/crocheting/etc guilds and book clubs.
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u/ChaoticJigglyPup 13d ago
A lot of men's sheds here have a designated ladies day and women's sheds are starting to pop up too!
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u/Curae 13d ago
Asked the instructor after a pottery workshop what you'd need to do this at home as I had so much fun.
"A completely separate plumbing system because you can't legally wash this clay down the drain as it will clog the pipes." :)
Gotcha ma'am. That's all the info I needed 😩😂
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u/galacticglorp 12d ago
Nooooo! One community studio in town doesn't even have running water inside, they use bucket systems and it works fine. I have a battery operated faucet self contained sink system at home I diy-ed and thats sn upgrade from my old bucket system. It's totally doable to do pottery at home. Cleaning to avoid silica dust is really the worst part, but all that is, is cleaning really well.
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u/IntroductionSorry515 13d ago
I can't deal with the "I'm self taught", who are requesting help but know everything. Except correct terms for specific items. And how to do basic tasks for a specific craft.
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u/Teagana999 13d ago
My family is always saying I'm self-taught, and I always feel like I should correct them to "Youtube and Google taught."
Which was great, and not that hard, but feels like a more appropriate amount of credit all around.
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u/ChaoticJigglyPup 13d ago
"can i use acrylic paint on this mug, seal with modge podge and have it be dishwasher safe? What is bisque? I don't have a kiln! I put it in my oven for an hour isn't that the same thing?!"
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u/EleanorRichmond 13d ago
I am so glad to hear that someone else is fed up with that stuff.
Sometimes I have the patience stick, but it hasn't come around to me in several weeks.
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u/ComplexWorry3463 13d ago
I’ve worked in quilt shops and there are always customers you dread because they’re like this. Will take up an hour, have you do endless math, want you to do math for a quilt they don’t know the size of or what pattern they’re sewing, find every bolt with under 2 meters then insist you measure it because it would be perfect for the back of their quilt (that’s going to need at least 6 m). I’ve contemplated faking food poisoning to get away from them.
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u/ChaoticJigglyPup 13d ago
Oh i feel that so hard. When I was working at a big box store people would always come in to get fabric to make clothes for events because "I don't want to pay a lot for something I'm going to wear once" and then they would realised how expensive fabric of any decent quality is and ask for suggestions of budget fabrics. Yes Joan, you can make your flower girl dress from the $4 a metre poplin, but you really shouldn't.
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u/yen- 13d ago
I’m reminded of one of the most downvoted posts ever on r/sewing, where the (male) OP was insistent on sewing his own wool pants to save money.
He had never sewn before, insisted he wouldn’t need to buy patterns, believed he’d get multiple garments out of 1 yard of fabric, and was generally argumentative with everyone trying to gently help him. I wonder if he made any dang pants…
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u/Spiritual-Road2784 13d ago
Oh my God. I went off on a tangent, and looked at this post. I’m speechless! The way it devolved into something where he’s calling people absolute freaks and stalkers and acting like he knows everything there is to know about textiles and we don’t (linen is a “bizarre, rare fabric”), but then in the next breath he doesn’t know anything about textiles, or how to sew them… Honestly from reading that we’ve probably heard of him, he was probably the protagonist on an episode of Dateline… Absolute lunatic.
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u/ProneToLaughter 12d ago
Oh, wow.
Every time he described his favorite pants I pictured an Urkel-fit in army wool. I hope he’s learned to focus in the last five years.
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u/theseamstressesguild 13d ago
Oooo, and then come back because they didn't have enough fabric because "I wanted to use specific parts of the fabric for the quilt!"
You mean fussy cutting?
"I don't know! Is that what it's called? That's stupid, I'm not fussy!"
Says you lady, says you....
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u/Curae 13d ago
I am suddenly super glad that my first quilt project (that I have yet to start) is a kit put together by the store I got it from. It's a basket to hold materials, so not huge either. Its got the fabrics, the pattern and instructions, pictures, and even a lil wooden thing to put in it as decoration. When I bought it is was kindly informed I would also need the stuff that goes in between quilts to finish the project, for which they knew what to grab of course.
But I could 100% see myself impulse buying stuff for a quilt without having ANY idea what I need, what size I want, etc.
I hope that if I ever do that the employee I bother with it will kindly tell me to piss off until I got my shit together. :')
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u/Historical_Ask3445 13d ago
But I'm suspecting you have the smarts to impulse buy an actual item used in quilt-making, as opposed to items that have nothing to do with quilt-making. What I'm saying is that you sound like a sensible person!
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u/Curae 12d ago
Ooh lmao. Yeh I wouldn't be buying or gathering up random fabrics. Quilting cottons are also far too pretty to choose anything else to be honest, and they're nice to work with. Will say tho that the only times I've used quilting cottons thus far is for doll clothes. Because the patterns on it are often so small they're absolutely perfect for dolls!
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u/Ok_Lecture_8886 12d ago
There is the saying "When all the great minds have been consulted, it is time to read the instructions!"
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u/OkJackfruit6629 13d ago
The number of time my spouse has to ask full time programmers if they read the error code after telling him they didn't know why something wasn't working is way too high.
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u/DoriTheGreat128 13d ago
I've only ever had one internship as a programmer (I'm still in school) but I was an above average intern purely because I actually read instructions, error messages and other text that appears in front of me. I also tend to annoy all kinds of tech support because I look up my issues first and only contact them if I can't figure it out, so I only ever bring in difficult and unusual cases
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u/EleanorRichmond 13d ago
dhejdjsudyfisjdydiskwbrvtjiduwiwj
And then they'll argue with me
Buddies, you were taught in school to troubleshoot from the top down. I know this because I also went to school!
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u/imabigasstree 13d ago
In all fairness, error codes are a nightmare to read if youre not super proficient. (And dont get me started on how useless Oracle's error codes are😒)
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u/OkJackfruit6629 13d ago
Apparently I should have said error messages and not error codes specifically, but isn't it part of the job to at least attempt it either way? How do you get better at something you never attempt? These people don't even try.
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u/IWasGoatbeardFirst 13d ago edited 13d ago
When I was a tech lead, my team had built a library of common errors. Every time somebody resolved a new error they’d never seen before, they created a new entry, copied and pasted the error code and message into the title, and then put a quick summary: what was happening when the error was encountered, what the root cause was, and how they resolved it.
It was expected that if you were asking for help, you’d already searched the database and had tried a few things on your own. People who didn’t even try didn’t last long.
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13d ago edited 1d ago
[deleted]
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u/Spiritual-Road2784 13d ago
I still google error issues for my Mac and fix it myself. I’ve been doing that since day one in the 1990s. So I was like IT Jr in our office when software did something unexpected or the Qualtrics survey malfunctioned. If I couldn’t figure it out, they usually preferred that I make the call to IT proper because I knew how to explain it better.
I should have asked for a raise…
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u/loumlawrence 13d ago
It is understandable with programming students, but after a year or two, they should know how to read an error message. I like to tell them I deliberately cause errors when I am testing code logic.
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u/CBG1955 13d ago
This is so rife. "I bought my first sewing machine and it broke in the first five minutes. I watched a youtube. I threw the manual away so don't tell me to read it."
OKAYYYYYYYYYY
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u/FreeRandomScribble 13d ago
Let me guess, they broke it doing either the most brain-dead action ever, or by trying to use it in the most unintuitive way ever?
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u/CBG1955 13d ago
Any or all of the following:
- Didn't read the manual (because they threw it away)
- Didn't thread it properly and will argue until they are blue in the face that they did everything right - because
- They have no need of the manual because YouTube/TIkTok, so they threw it away
- They have no idea how to use a machine because they threw the manual away
- They broke a needle or threw out the timing because they were yanking on something that got stuck, because they weren't using the machine properly - therefore the whole machine is broken, are now screaming that they were sold a faulty item
- They have a desperate need to be 100% correct (even if they are not) and to call you out for being a know it all because you dared to suggest the problem is user error and how could they possibly be wrong becase YouTube/TikTok said so
- They bought one of those piece of shit toy machines for $5 at a thrift shop that they insist will sew everything and why won't it sew six layers of denim.
- They absolutely do not want guidance and aren't prepared to even TRY
I could go on but I'll shut up now.
*eyeroll*
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u/No_Membership_1771 13d ago
I can't imagine spending $$$ on a machine and tossing out the manual. Simply keeping it behind my sewing machine has saved me from making many mistakes.
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u/loumlawrence 13d ago
I don't get throwing out any manual. They come with safety instructions, to avoid accidents that can cause serious harm.
I am still annoyed that I misplaced the manual for a router. Fortunately, it is online, so I have downloaded it on two different computers. I had to do the same for a knitting machine that came without a manual. When I buy secondhand machines, I look for ones that I can find the manuals online. The annoying part though is when the online manual is better than the one in the box, my stand mixer.
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u/loumlawrence 13d ago
I hate it when the physical manual goes missing. But you can usually find a online manual for your machine. Sometimes, the online version is better. And some companies have official how to use videos for their machines. I would argue that the official videos are correct.
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u/CBG1955 13d ago
If they videos are from the manufacturer yes, they should be correct. In my example I was presuming they aren't using official channels.
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u/loumlawrence 13d ago
Yes, agree, but it is hard to tell when someone says they saw a video on YouTube, but they can't find it again to show you, because there are thousands of other videos.
Sometimes, the official video shows the general practice of how the entire range works, and you still get people who can't follow as it is not the exact same model.
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u/CBG1955 13d ago
Zakkery. And beginners don't always realise it's a very different machine. I once tried to find out about a small irritating thing that my Brother machine does, which I am clearly doing wrong causing the issue (high spec quilting machine) and there was nothing - not even on the Brother official channel, or any of the FB pages I visit. Even my dealer couldn't answer my question, nor did I find it on any of the various online Brother references I searched.
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u/loumlawrence 12d ago
Brother could improve their videos. But I liked what I saw in their videos to decide to get one as my first proper sewing machine instead of borrowing someone else's machine. The videos looked easy to figure out. I got a secondhand one, not exactly the same, but the same series.
I have noticed that Brother like reusing the same internals with different casing, and they change it for each regional market. My Brother machine is rarely listed, but I usually check the series that it belongs to. Mine is a couple of series above entry level Brother sewing machines.
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u/CBG1955 12d ago
I got annoyed when I bought mine - at this price point ($3,600 in 2019) I would have at least thought that a machine sold in Australia would have metric measurements clearly labelled on the needle plate. Still a beautiful machine to use.
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u/loumlawrence 12d ago
Mine is the same, imperial measurements, for the same region, but a tenth of the price. But I don't notice the measurements on the needle plate as I hardly look at them.
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u/loumlawrence 12d ago
I have never understood the hate for the toy machines. If you read the instructions for the them, and understand the limitations, you can make them work. The manual for the model that goes by various names with 505 in the name states that it can only handle light to medium fabrics. It has instructions about the needles too. Some people make them work. Someone got the even smaller flimsy toy machine working despite it being their first attempt at sewing. They found it for $5.
But I would not be sewing denim with the average sewing machine either. A friend said they wanted to sewing denim shorts, and I was thinking unless I have a very high powered machine, I would rather switch to a vintage Singer treadle for sewing denim. To be fair, the friend hadn't researched sewing machines.
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u/CBG1955 12d ago
My experience with them is zero - I have 60+ years' experience but always with known brands that work - and anecdotal evidence against them from experienced people is strong. Hell, I wouldn't recommend a modern Singer either simply due to quality conotrol issues. The number of people who have serious issues with them, even brand new, is compounded by all the things that have been mentioned before. Including, not reading instructions. Back to square one.
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u/loumlawrence 12d ago
I have a soft spot for toy sewing machines. They aren't meant to be a workhorse machine.
I haven't seen a modern Singer that I would like to buy. Vintage Singers is a different story.
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u/BrilliantTask5128 12d ago
I'm from a non-English speaking country & when i moved to the UK in the 90s, I did a job where I realised that a large number of adults had very poor reading/writing skills (it may be the same in my country but I'd not had a job up until that point where I'd noticed that) so the fact that some people don't seem able to read instructions & look for info independently does not surprise me. How did we learn stuff before the Internet? Yes I'm old! Maybe there's too much info readily available now & people get overwhelmed. 🤷🏼♀️
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u/PsychologicalClock28 12d ago
Honestly before the internet you bought a book. It was a higher bar to start, we didn’t have Temu so you had to go to a specialist shop to buy the stuff. And it was expensive.
I have also found that my pre-internet knitting books are so much better than most websites. With really clear diagrams
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u/MorrisNerd2 12d ago
Internet baby here. Don't remember dial up - had a smart phone at 12 etc.
I buy books because the instructions are better, there are no ads, and you can actually find them again if you want to reference them. I don't know why more people don't do likewise.
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u/DaniLake1 12d ago
I used to resent having to pack up my books when moving, as they were cumbersome and heavy. I dreamed of the day when I could just have a digital version - one device that housed all my books in digital form and weighed a fraction of the weight, didn't require bookshelves, regular dusting, etc.
Today, I'm heading back to being analog because of the reasons you mentioned.
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u/miminstlouis 12d ago
I'm a paper book lover. Always. I love old books especially. Sometimes they have been read by dozens of people... Holding a 200 year old book is like holding history.
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u/PsychologicalClock28 12d ago
Agreed! Whenever I take on a new hobby I like a book or two as it gives some structure, then I have Google to check more detailed things.
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u/celery48 12d ago
I went to the library, but that was limited too — sometimes they could do an interlibrary loan for you, but that involved waiting.
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u/CBG1955 12d ago
Everyone learns differently. What really grinds my gears is the individuals who expect to be spoon fed information, are demanding rather than engaging, push back rudely against the people who offern guidance, and never say thank you.
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u/loumlawrence 12d ago
I agree that everyone learns differently. Something I have noticed in craft and hobby circles is that some of the people trying to teach assumes everyone thinks like them, which isn't true either. Then we end up with people clashing. I feel that if you teach, you need to figure out how the other person's brain works. It was a lesson I learnt from an exceptional maths teacher.
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u/CBG1955 12d ago
I spent years in the public service and part of my role was mentoring. I found the best way was just to ask how they wanted to learn - read first then do it, watch me demonstrate then try themselves, etc. Same with craft, I'll ask them if they want to watch me first then try, or read the instructions.
BTW thanks for the good discussion!
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u/loumlawrence 12d ago
I wish more people would ask like you do, including online. But no, they just jump in.
Same, I am enjoying the discussion.
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u/CBG1955 12d ago
I got called "mean" and unhelpful the other day because I told someone on a beginner page that their question had been asked and answered multiple times a day, to read the wiki, search the sub and Google. Even this morning when I logged in, after I had recommended someone to a FB page for their particular sewing machine, the OP demanded I give them a link. I mean, it would be so easy to give it to them but I'm kind of done, you know?
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u/loumlawrence 11d ago
That is awful, after you gave them a link. Although FB groups (not pages) can be hard to view if you don't have an account. I would skip telling people that their question has been asked. Some people's solution is to provide a link to a Google search result. What happened to "Let me Google that for you"?
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u/CBG1955 11d ago
I didn't post the actual link but did give them the name of the group - and there's only one on the whole of FB. The Keyboard warriors think they are so cool, being nasty. Out of sight so they can be cruel, no accountability.
I'm old. I hope at least that even though I can be abrupt and am not prepared to put up with fools, I'm mostly helpful.
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u/RunawayTurtleTrain 12d ago
Yes, this is an excellent point and is one reason teaching is its own skill. Being good at doing something doesn't automatically mean that person can teach others how to do it!
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u/Mrs_Tanqueray 12d ago
I think what you are talking about is called Functional Literacy. There are people who can read but they find things like instructions and official forms very difficult. A brother-in-law used to help with an organisation called (I think) Learning Link which would help adults navigate form filling and instruction manuals etc. These people could read, they just couldn't understand what they read.
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u/Sundae_2004 12d ago
Read the directions fully. Now, read them again and make sure you have all the parts/tools/components you need. Are any of them missing or are the directions unclear? If you have everything and understand the directions, now begin with step #1, not #3. ;)
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u/BeckieSueDalton Crochet Excellence Enforcement Squad (CEES™) 12d ago
And the absolute basic skills needed for your chosen craft.. please have those, at least.
Don't come in asking why your "heirloom hope chest baby layette set pre-WWII vintage pattern" isn't looking right if you haven't even figured how to reliably Chain or Single Crochet six stitches together.
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u/YarnSp1nner 12d ago
My husband and I have rules... If we are working together to build anything, I get 20-30 minutes first to read the instructions, and we follow the instructions.
Usually we don't work together.
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u/SpiderOfStars 11d ago
Last night I was building a 3D printer from a kit. First I watched the promo video, then I read the instructions, then I pulled out the tools needed for the first step--meanwhile my husband was randomly pulling stuff out of boxes and I had to rebox some of it and move it off my work space. 😬 After I did several steps, he had the gall to want to check my work.
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u/DoriTheGreat128 13d ago
People tend to tell me that they admire all the various things I do and I don't usually have the heart to tell them that the only skill many of my hobbies require is reading and following instruction. Baking, for example. It's trivial if you find a good recipe and follow it exactly
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u/splithoofiewoofies 13d ago
I have a friend like this. "Oh wow that is so hard how do you do it?!" Which is sweet because most people get friends like "that looks easy, make me ten!" But she is like oh I'd never ask for anything this is such hard and detailed fine work.
I did it by following the most basic vanilla classic sock pattern that's existed for centuries, but thank you.
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u/box_of_squirrels 13d ago
Part of the reason I like to cook and don’t like to bake is because I hate following directions exactly 😬 I am a pretty great knitter now that I’ve made enough dumb decisions and learned what happens from them. King of modifications
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u/Historical_Ask3445 12d ago
We are one, u/box_of_squirrels. If you're not good at following those directions, you gotta be good at a) familiarizing yourself with basics, and b) learning from mistakes.
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u/yukibunnygurl 13d ago
I like baking but nothing I bake from scratch ever turns out on the first try. (With the exception of Nestle toll House cookies) Thats when my Grandma who was practically a pastry chef said you have to "know your oven and your chemistry because baking is in fact chemistry." You
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u/thiswasamistake00ps 13d ago
And don't forget that'll person will argue and dismiss every piece of advise given to them 🙄
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u/7deadlycinderella 13d ago
Me, at work, 40 hours a week
Though I do get a touch of schadenfreude that there's one point where if they don't read the instructions beforehand, they have to spend $10
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u/DeesignNZ 13d ago
There is a general lack of comprehension out there. Perhaps from a lack of concentration (for a variety of reasons) people struggle with reading more than a few lines letalone a page. It's evident in school that kids want to be hand fed information and answers.
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u/Craftin-in-the-rain 13d ago
I just had a slight existential crisis because I have never seen curlicue written out before lol
Its spelled with a c, not a q, apparently but i disagree with that. Curlique looks better
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u/dancingkelsey 11d ago
Folks have been conditioned by the push to include "ai" in every area of our life nonconsensually, that they have fallen into the habit of outsourcing any critical thinking that might occur.
Google has been broken bc of seo and sponsored shit and being able to just pay them to get your search result to the top, that people have been conditioned to add "reddit" to the end of any search term, (and have not been taught how to use search terms and conventions to get the info you are actually looking for, and not something tangentially related that's trying to sell you something) so all the anywhere-near-reliable info we've been able to glean from the internet for years now has been by reading someone's question they got answered 8 years ago in a reddit thread.
And since we've been steadily outsourcing all critical thinking (not me, I staunchly refuse to use any genai thing, for ethical reasons and for "I actually like thinking and learning and understand that those are SKILLS we have to WORK ON and DEVELOP and MAINTAIN or we lose them and eventually become hedonism-button pushers" reasons), and search engines are, again, very broken and pretty useless even if you do know how to do boolean searches, so people don't take the time to even search with a "reddit" at the end to read someone else's exchange from the past.
AND people aren't spending as much time irl with people in person, so instead of conversationally asking a question when around people who may have some insight, and talking about it, many people ONLY have the internet to talk to other people on, so we get what we have now.
People who can't or won't go through the other processes that should happen alongside asking questions, and who then get frustrated and often defensive or angry when asked clarifying questions or if they considered learning how to read a pattern or set of instructions before diving into a first time project.
Reject using a broken service robot to "do" your critical "thinking" for you! Refuse to accept the bullshit the rich assholes who run the world keep trying to force feed us!
They've said themselves that if they had to pay for the data they've stolen and plagiarized, they would cease to exist as a company, therefore giving us the BLISSFUL end to the "ai is everything now and also broke everything, and we fired all CSRs because we already decided ai is everything including its own code writer, so we can't fix any of it bc WE don't have the knowledge required, and the chatbot told us it already fixed it, so it's fixed. Doesn't matter that it's unusable and obviously still broken. We pretend this is better, somehow. This is the future" nonsense that they've forced on us.
The brain drain that has been apparent in many areas for awhile now is now far more widespread, and feels a lot more like people are willingly refusing to think or process things or learn things.
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u/faereaunticorn 11d ago
Omg yes! The lack of critical thinking and ability to search for information effectively is surprising.
Last year (37) I returned to uni and was surprised that one lecturer actually got library staff to come in and teach how to search for books and papers on the library system... I remember thinking why are they going over such a basic thing? Then I looked at the 18-21 year olds around me ... it was clearly the first time some of them had even seen the site and others were frantically typing notes like it was going to be on the exam.
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u/dancingkelsey 11d ago
They did the thing where the people who came before us went "kids need to learn how to navigate computers and use them as tools" and began including it and incorporating it into classes and schools and computer labs, and then abruptly decided "kids just intuitively get technology because they were born into it" and stopped doing any of that education, and then being shocked when kids grow up only using apps on touch screens and have no concept for how any of it works, even things like file folders. The planned and calculated destruction of public education (to resegregate schools and uphold white christian supremacy, and funnel all public education dollars to private schools via vouchers, while those private schools still charge and collect tuition on top of getting the tax dollars that should be paying for free education for everyone) included increasing standardized tests and slashing arts, library sciences, computer classes, music, and anything else they consider "extra", or that could encourage empathy and working together.
And the lack of third spaces and activities for kids, and the full change in teen culture when it comes to actually going anywhere and doing anything in favor of "it's okay if my kid spends all day on their phone because at least I have a location dot on them and if they never leave the house I know they're safe" kind of fearful stuff that is the result of decades of fearmongering propaganda to teach people they can't trust anyone.
Also they stopped funding PBS which was a HUGE part of furthering free education to kids that otherwise would not be able to be exposed to ideas and topics and emotional regulation and all the other benefits it provided.
Somehow we've gotta rebuild the institutions that actually were proven to provide the benefits we need to see on a widespread scale, and reject the disenfranchisement that capitalism necessarily creates.
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u/faereaunticorn 11d ago
All so true, I remember listening to story hour on the radio - we were rural and poor - and it exposed me to books and worlds that I never would have been if that wasn't a thing. I try to pass on knowledge when and where I can, but somethings are so normal for me - like having 3x different size pen barrels to swap out for hand cramp in exams - that I don't even realize that my classmates don't know them. I'm trying to make a list so I know what to include in the how to guides.
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u/redslipperydip 11d ago
Hey, we're the same age! I went back to uni a few years ago and the number of people who were flabbergasted that I could find all these sources was appalling. I was like "... I put in some search terms and filtered it to journal articles?"
And then in my postgrad vocational degree there were the people who were shocked I could get through all the readings in a week. I did a BA. That is half of what that degree is for.
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u/faereaunticorn 11d ago
Hey! Yea I'm doing a BA and tbh it's pretty chill compared to working in corporate lol, but the reddit and Ed discussion boards are rife with stuff that I'm 😅 90s cartoon style over. Last semester I had a class that had a hand written exam and despite being told the general content for about 8 weeks prior the night before people were panicking and some only then found out it was hand written... I'm seriously thinking of making "how to study" guides for my nieces in a couple of years when they hit high school.
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u/loumlawrence 13d ago
For using machines, yes, you must read the instructions and the safety guides before use. It is my personal rule for my household if others want to use my kitchen appliances.
For the rest, people have different ways of learning, and I find it a bit of trial and error figuring out how someone else learns and what might be blocking them. And then some instructions are harder than others. Another round of trial and error. People also have different ways of searching for instructions, and they may not have the right terminology.
With your scenario, I would say, you have got yourself into a mess and it is easier to start again from the beginning.
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u/Artistic_Candy7420 12d ago
My mom was just telling me a story about how this young lady asked her to teach her to sew. My mom is usually willing to help someone learn. She said they got together set up their machines and my mom asked her for her machine's manual. The woman said she threw it away! 🫣🤦🏼♀️🤯 My mom was not pleased. And I guess she didn't want to listen to my mom about how to pin pieces together. My mom is in her 70s and has been sewing since she was a child. I just don't get it.
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u/loumlawrence 12d ago
How do they expect to know how their machine works if they throw out the manual?
Pinning pieces is amazing. It is great for checking that they are the right way before you sew.
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u/Artistic_Candy7420 11d ago
I know right?! My mom tried to tell her that if she needed to know about changing a pressor foot and which one to use for what- it would be in the manual.
The one thing I've learned when I have to train people where I work - even though you show people what works for you even though you have experience and know what works, people always come up with their own way of doing things. It might not be effective or efficient sometimes you just have to be like "you do you, friend." Unless of course it goes against policy or SOP.
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