learn to sew

My mom and dad bought me my very own sewing machine today! :D

I’m still focusing on this, and I’m not giving up. I read a “How-to” sewing book and I found that was a good place to start, rather than waiting for my mom to teach me. Since then I’ve been considering what to make as my first project. Something small, easy to make, and useful…

Well, seeing how I am coming to the end of my pregnancy, what better item to make than postpartum pads!?

I found a great pattern/guideline here and I’ve been rounding up the supplies to start on making a few. I am going to use an old pair of splash pants for the backing, old torn up towels for the core, and soft scraps of flannel for the top most layer.

Baby could arrive very soon, so I don’t have long. I don’t intend to make a million, maybe just 3-5 to try them out. (I use a diva cup for any other time, so postpartum will be the only time I’ll ever really use these!)

That’s the caption on the back of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Sewing” that I rented from the library. I also grabbed the Sewing for Dummies version.

No wonder I had a hard time finding them, though! Where would YOU put the sewing books: with the knitting, crocheting, cross stitch and other crafting books, or would you put them with the gardening, cooking and child care books?

Anyway, at least I found them.(:

What do you know?! My mom finally gave me my first lesson in sewing today. I guess my chronic complaining paid off! Though perhaps she also felt guilty in beginning to teach my 11 year old sister how to sew after two days of talking about it and here she’s been putting me off for almost two whole years.

It was just a bare basics lesson on how to thread the machine, how to fill the bobbin, the different stitches and their uses, the needle sizes and their proper uses; things like that. Despite the lack of actual sewing taking place, I’m very happy. I have to start somewhere, after all, and “getting to know” my machine is as good as any.

I’ve noticed a pattern with my mom…

When I was pregnant, I wanted my mom to teach me to sew. She had even bought me my own sewing machine to teach me on one day, and told me “once you are off work on maternity leave, we’ll have time to.”

Okay, great. Except that we were gone that whole summer, and when we came back, she told me to wait til spring. Winter was just a bit too busy.

Okay, well, come spring, it was “wait til my garden is in”, “wait til you’re back at work and settled in again”, “wait til I have my sewing area set up properly, I’ve been disorganized” and so on and so on. It’s always wait for something, wait for just one thing more before…

The most current one? Wait until Tommy is working. Then it will be wait til you have another baby and you’re on mat. leave again. THEN it will be wait til the kids are older. Wait til pigs fly, wait til hell freezes over…

So forget that! I’ll have to be self taught, which I feel confident I can do. Lessons aren’t an option at the moment as I just don’t have a) the money, b) the open schedule and c) I’d have to leave Gabriel with someone and when I’m not at work, I spend as much time with him as possible.

I have amassed over 70 cheers on this and I’m not a day closer to learning so much as how to thread the needle. I hate that! If I’d made some progress, okay, cool, but this is one of the goals I’d originally added when I first joined 43things and I haven’t done ANYTHING.

So I made some decisions last night. I am going to focus on completing my correspondence course first and then this will be my primary focus. I will rent some books from the library on sewing machines and sewing in the meantime to flip through. I can set up my sewing corner. I can start hoarding get some supplies for my first projects. Wal-Mart currently has their fabric and embellishments 75% off for clearance, so now would be the best time to stock up. I can get ribbons, thread, patterns, and any of what is left of the fabric for cheap!

If I do say so myself, my mother is quite the seamstress. Oh, sure, she stresses out and claims she hates to sew, but when it comes down to it, she made all the bridesmaids dresses for both my sister and I’s weddings.

She has been promising to teach me for months now, and now that I feel things are somewhat balanced between work, family and other miscellaneous things (like trimming donkey hooves. note: do that today…) I asked her when I can start learning to sew! She said once her garden is in.

Well, her garden is in! Let’s rock!

My husband, his brother and a bunch of their friends just recently got involved in play sword fights in the park, and it’s for Amtgard, a live action rpg… thing.

As much as I’d love to run around with play swords or bow and fake, padded arrows, it’s more than a little difficult – more so impossible – with a 3 month old.

But they do have arts and crafts, and one of those just so happens to be sewing. So I’m going to investigate this further.