Every learning session I’ve ever been in, without exception, whether at StraightCurves or at school, I have heard people – sometimes myself – berating themselves for making mistakes. I used to do this often myself, but slowly, over time, I’ve learnt to embrace my mistakes and find joy and opportunity in them.
Learning that not every mistake needs fixing isn’t easy, but it can be incredibly liberating. Sometimes a mistake takes you somewhere better than you originally planned to go.
On Friday evening, I experienced this myself. I was attending the dressmaking course as a learner, in an attempt to finally finish one of the many dressmaking projects I have started and never completed. However, unsurprisingly, that isn’t what I did.
Instead, on a whim, I decided to reline my handbag. All the rain we’ve been having means that I’ve had to abandon my summer handbag until next year. This was making me sad, and I thought using some of my vintage fabric stash to reline it might bring some joy back.
Firstly, it resulted in me looking at my fabric stash – something I hadn’t done for a very long time – and nearly resulted in me starting multiple new project ideas. But I’m digressing… So, I found some fabric, turned up late and got started. I took lots of measurements. I was tired, so I added a bit extra, just in case I cut it badly… and then instantly forgot that I had. So I sped through making the lining and started sewing it into the bag.
Then I realised I hadn’t marked or allowed for the slot needed in the new lining for the zip pocket. I sorted that using an idea I’d seen on Instagram, which worked surprisingly well. It wasn’t perfect because I was going quickly, but it was bringing me joy – and that’s what mattered.
Anyway, having struggled to sew the zip slot in with the bag attached, I continued sewing around the lining. When I got most of the way around, I realised the lining was too big for the bag.
GRRRRR! Cross Karen – but only briefly. Then I had an idea.
Today I completed my idea, and it has worked out brilliantly. I now have a pleated phone pocket at the end of the bag, which solves the too-large lining problem and, hopefully, helps with the “I’ve lost my phone somewhere in my bag” problem too. With my menopausal brain, that currently happens about three times an hour!
“Things that happen sometimes are more beautiful than things you really sit and planned.” — Bob Ross
That quote really sums up what happened with my handbag.
Embracing something going wrong as an opportunity can genuinely bring joy from our mistakes. It’s something I’m going to try to do even more often, and I hope you do too.
It’s hard at first, but you can reframe your thinking in lots of situations. A mistake doesn’t always need to be something you immediately put right. Sometimes it can be the starting point for something unexpected – and sometimes, something better.
Mistakes are part of learning
When I’m teaching, I often talk to learners about how useful mistakes can be to the learning process. It can be much easier to remember how to do something when you’ve gone wrong first. You remember the problem, you work out what happened, and you’re less likely to make exactly the same mistake again.
Trial and error is a very valid way of learning.
When I make samples for workshops and courses, I sometimes deliberately work quickly and without giving the process my full attention. Partly that’s my impatience, admittedly! But there’s another reason too.
Before I teach something, one of the best learning experiences for me is discovering where mistakes are likely to happen and where misconceptions might occur.
If I make a mistake while creating a sample, I can think about why it happened. Was the instruction unclear? Is there a tricky stage that needs demonstrating? Would a learner benefit from seeing it broken down into smaller steps?
Understanding those potential stumbling blocks makes me a better teacher. And, of course, the more I teach a workshop, and the more learners I see making mistakes, the better I become at anticipating them and helping people through them. So, in another slightly unexpected way, your mistakes make me a better teacher.
Following the creative journey
Perhaps we need to get a little better at accepting that mistakes are not necessarily failures.
Thomas Edison is often credited with the quote:
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
The exact wording is difficult to trace back to Edison, but the sentiment is a good one. A documented account from 1910 records Edison talking about discovering “several thousand things that won’t work” while working on his inventions.
And that, really, is what creativity and learning are all about.
Trying something.
Seeing what happens.
Making a mistake.
Changing direction.
Trying again.
And occasionally discovering that the thing you ended up with is better than the thing you originally intended to make.
So, anyway you look at it, I propose we start celebrating mistakes a little more. Like Edison, we might discover that what didn’t work was actually teaching us something we needed to know.
And perhaps, like Bob Ross, we can learn to embrace those happy accidents.
Follow your creative journey. See where it takes you.
Mistakes and all.
Quotes:
Ross, B. (1988) Golden Mist Oval. The Joy of Painting, Series 17. Available at: PBS (Accessed: 19 September 2026).
Dyer, F.L. and Martin, T.C. (1910) Edison: His Life and Inventions. New York: Harper & Brothers.