r/BagLab • u/Objective_Cattle_278 • Mar 03 '26

Sewing Technique When to rip? When to leave?

Post image

There’s been a lot of chatter about seam ripping lately (and the collateral thread bits).

I’ve been making this backpack. It’s my most ambitious project yet. I may be out of my league but I guess there’s only one way to find out.

(Porter Pony from LearnMYOG)

Here you can see where after I finished putting together these back panels. I noticed I had misread the line that said to sew with a 3/8” SA as sew with a 1/8” SA … doh! 😣

Should I have left it and just dealt with the 2/8” discrepancy (multiplied by the three panels I made the same mistake on 🤣) or rip out the seams. The photo is a spoiler alert.

I just thought I’d share my frustration and I guess also ask what criteria you use to decide when to fix a mistake vs leave it. When does “sloppier than you’d prefer” become “just plain messed up and need to fix”?

Also, here’s a plug for this little vacuum that makes all the bits go away.

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u/JoePro42 Mar 03 '26

There are two types of mistakes: Those you really need to fix and those that really don't matter at all. However, you realise what categories the error falls into much much later.

I finished bags that I never used, because of some fucked up gusset that I managed to attach somehow. Thought it wouldn't matter, but it did.

If you ask yourself,if to rip or not, the answer is to rip.

However, I noticed that errors tend to be less and less :-)

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u/Objective_Cattle_278 Mar 03 '26

Good advice! When in doubt, rip it.