Instant Gratification Vs Slow Burn

This week I became the proud owner of sweet new sewing goodies. There's the world's largest cutting mat (second hand freebie saving me $110 retail- BOOYAH!), a rotary cutter, sewing pencils, a seam measurer thingy and Gertie's new sewing book. Quite the haul I must say...

As I paged through Gertie's book for the first time I noticed an emphasis upon taking things slow. Focusing on detail. Making each piece of clothing you sew a work of art and love. And for some reason the message really struck home in my tiny bear brain. 

I am all about the fast job. I work and train long hours and, like so many of my fellow bloggers, find my sewing hours are restricted. I'll be honest here- when a project is taking ages it grinds me down. I start taking shortcuts and get frustrated. But is it worth it? I mean, my pieces are still well finished thought not to the standard they could be. Put it this way- they're not total hot messes, I wear them in public and whatnot... But then I think about the projects I am most proud of...

My Chantilly dress. 

This sucker took me almost a month to complete. I learnt so many new skills and pushed my intro level skills to the brink to get this done.

My Cambie summer is almost here sundress. 

I spent two weeks working on this, modifying, altering, changing pattern pieces for the first time. While the fabric stretched in the end (curse you suspiciously sourced mystery gingham!) I am still so proud of the level of polish and finish I brought to this garment.

And then there is my epic Milano cape of rad pinkness. 

I have never been so careful and considerate with a garment. It took me about a month to get this piece done and may I say I can welt pocket like a boss now. Bam!

The common thread between these pieces is the attention to detail. The joy of learning new skills. Of testing myself and trying something new. This was especially apparent today as I finally learned how to slip stitch properly. I'm almost finished on a new frock that I am absolutely itching to share with everyone. The second last step is to slip stitch the bottom of the bodice closed to the skirt. Regular Amanda was all up in my head doing her usual "Come on, lady. Let's get this sucker finished through some saucy machine stitch in the ditch action. You know you want to! You also know you want cake... Give in to both!". But I ignored that voice. Instead, I took myself outside and with a dog in my lap, my Colette handbook by my side I tried slip stitching. Get ready for some early fail work...

That sucker was not happening at first. But I kept working at it. An hour passed and I was only a third of the way through. Instead of throwing my needle down in frustration I looked at my work and was so very chuffed at how much neater and easier these stitches were becoming...

I think there is a joy to be found in slow and steady. While I still love the idea of having easy to knock over garments with instant gratification I'm going to start focusing on the slow burn as. Maybe one day my skillz will be mad enough to produce super rad and technical pieces in shirt time frames but until then I'm planning to dip my toes in both pools.

Does anyone else find they come up against the instant gratification vs slow burn dilemma? Is there a way to find a middle ground or do you just favour one type of sewing over the other? I'm keen to hear peep's thoughts on the matter!