Look What I Made!

Okay, so I decided to take the plunge and break out the sewing machine, knowing that there was a very good chance that I would get frustrated and walk away from it again. And yes, I did let my frustration get the best of me for a few minutes here and there, but I powered through. I did have one incident when my automatic threaded seemed to be broken, and I whined to my husband until he came to my rescue and showed me that my needle wasn't lowered enough for this feature to work. Yay for super hero husbands!

I bought the Butterick See & Sew apron pattern from Hobby Lobby when they were on sale for $1 months ago, and my mother-in-law showed me how to cut out my fabric (calico cotton, also from Hobby Lobby) and the poor things have been sitting, getting permanent fold lines embedded in them for months. I took out my trusty iron nd got to work getting te fabric back into some working order.

There were only 5 seperate pieces that needed to be sewn together, but both the top and bottom parts of the apron called for pleats, and since I'm clueless, I relied on YouTube to show me how to pin them before sewing.

I then pinned for my hem, and I'm probably not even using the hem tool correctly (what is that even called??), but it works for me.



Then I pieced everything together. I used red thread, because I liked the pop of color against the purple fabric.

And voila! We have one finished apron!

It is far from perfect, but I know that with more practice I'll be able to create better projects in time. I still plan on taking the sewing class, which will be taking place in a few weeks, and in the meantime, I'll be checking out tutorials via YouTube, which was definitely a life saver for this project.

 

Let's Talk About Sewing, Shall We?

For Christmas last year, my mother-in-law bought me this fancy-pants sewing machine:

While I was so excited to receive such an amazing present, I have used a sewing machine all of once in my life, and that was while helping her with a project, and getting frustrated the entire time. I have always wanted to learn how to sew, but never took the initiative to learn. The gift of this machine is the kick in the pants that I needed to become a sewing champ.

I initially decided that a good starter project would be an apron. I went out an bought a simple pattern, and mother-in-law and I went and bought fabric and a couple basic supplies to get me started. She helped me cut out the fabric so that when I got home with it, I could just sew everything together. I was excited to get home to start sewing......until I realized that I dont' know how to make pleats and the sewing terms used in the directions made absolutely no sense to me. I decided I would come back to this when I had more time......that was 4 6 months ago. Maybe a sewing class would be for me!
I did actually look into the sewing class and was amped and ready to go. I found a community class that was super inexpensive ($5), and then it got canceled because the instructor quit and they didn't have a back-up. Boooooo! I didn't want to spend the money for classes through the fabric stores, and I haven't been able to find any other classes that really fit what I wanted, so I've been putting this aside until this week when our community newsletter arrived! The classes are back on! The wonderful, cheap classes! They only offer one class, where you get to learn to sew pajamas, but they will offer it several times over the next few months. My plan is to take one in September, and if I don't really know what's going on, to re-take it in October/November. I'm really hoping that I will learn enough of the basic skills to allow me to use my machine so I can sew many other things.

Cross your fingers for me!