{via Keep Calm Etsy Shop}

Remember when I told you that I bought a sewing machine?  Well, I’m sad to report it’s been collecting dust since we moved and I haven’t completed any new projects.  Life has just gotten in the way and then the overwhelmed feeling of where do I start?  I’m going to tell you where I’m going to start…

As I was doing my nightly blog read the other day I came across a Home Ec class on the Smile and Wave blog.  What, could it be?  An online sewing class?  Where every project is pretty much awesome?  Oh and I learn new techniques along the way?  I’m in.

Yep, I signed up.  For an awesome class taught by the lovely ladies of Smile and Wave, Freckled Nest and Courtney Janelle Sews.

Do you want to sign up too?  We can support each other along the way.  I’m looking for others to turn to when I inevitability get confused and start to create havoc on my sewing project.

Here are the details and part 1 of the 26 projects.  Here is part 2.  Looks awesome right?

Who else is in?

I recently saw this tutorial from Hazelnuts (via Indie Icing) and was instantly loving the adorable custom mug cosy!  How cute is that?

Adding it to the must have list for sewing now.  I’m getting out my sewing machine this weekend for some projects and I might be making use of this tutorial.

Any recent tutorials you have found and added to the to-do list?

Remember when I told you I bought a sewing machine?  And that my experience is at level 0? Well, the weekend we bought the machine I decided to make a pillow.  Really had no clue what I was doing, but with help from Mark we figured it out.  Please note, this is the most basic pillow ever.

As I was trying to learn to sew, I didn’t take pictures of the process.  Hopefully in the future I’ll be able to when I don’t have to concentrate on just sewing a straight line.   Basically I chose 2 fabrics and then also used muslin as a liner for the inside to give a more polished look.  The muslin was by suggestion of the woman in line with us at the checkstand.  We went home, sewed the pillow and then stuffed it.

After stuffing the pillow we tried a by hand blind stitch to close it, but it didn’t look great.  Then we decided we should try a zipper.  The zipper didn’t look great either.  So, we went and found a zipper tutorial and then tried again.

Still following?  Yes, there were 3 versions of this pillow before we finished.  Oops.  I promised that I’d show you the real projects even if they weren’t perfect, right?  We just kept making it smaller since it started off rather large anyways.  Below are the pictures of version 1 and 3.  Version 2 didn’t get a picture.

Here is the front of the pillow on version 1.

Obviously I wasn’t ready for this picture, ignore the awkward face.  You can see how we used brown fabric on the back to match the details of the fabric on the front.  You can also see that the seams aren’t perfectly straight.  Some of that is due to stuffing though.

And here is our final version sitting in its new home.  2 versions later it’s much smaller than what you see above.  What do you think?

The pillow isn’t perfect, but I’m happy with it.  It was a good first project to get the idea of how to use a sewing machine.

What I learned from this project:

• Making bobbins
• Threading my sewing machine
• Sewing in straight lines
• Adding in a zipper (sort of, need some improvement in this area)
• That stuffing can look really weird sometimes and I want to try pillow inserts

Well, that was the first project.  I found a bunch of patterns on sale for $1.99 for pillows, aprons, purses and other fun things.  My next project will be using more of a specific pattern to create something.  I’ve also seen lots of fun ideas on some sewing/craft websites and blogs.  Suddenly I’m much more aware of any project that has a sewing machine involved.  Any fun sewing tutorials I should know about?

Happy Friday!  What are your weekend plans?

This weekend I bought a sewing machine! What’s my past sewing experience? Well I’ve sewed a button and when I was 13 I vaguely remembering sewing a bag at some club. Basically what I’m trying to say is that sewing is completely foreign to me and I have no clue what I am doing.

So why did I buy a sewing machine? I had seen first hand from my MIL how useful such skills could be as she adjusted/embellished clothing, added details to curtains and helped me hem pants for my short legs. Still, I wasn’t very interested in learning to sew for whatever reason. Well in recent months I’ve been admiring the sewing abilities of these lovely ladies and started contemplating that maybe it could be fun. I saw more and more inspiring projects out in the blog world and got a little curious. I looked into taking a sewing class a month or 2 ago, but then found out I had to own a sewing machine. There was no way I was paying $500+ to try a new hobby and learn how to sew. I got over sewing fast.

Fast forward to this weekend. I have been itching to bust out my Yudu and screen-print some place-mats, pillows and other fun items to add some decor to our home. I also wanted to get back into my crafting that has been on hold for the most part since the wedding. As I went shopping for the perfect place-mats, pillows and other materials I was dismayed to find that they were all either too expensive or just not good material for screen printing.

We went to JoAnn’s to buy some cheap material that I could test print on, before printing on the actual supplies that would cost us money if I screwed up. (Which in past Yuduing experience, there will be one or two mess ups at first.) Once we were there we somehow ended up in the mini sewing machine shop within the store. DUN dun dun. After some debate over the pros and cons we decided we should seriously consider buying one of the machines. I’d be able to create all those things I wanted to craft, it would be useful and mostly I wanted to learn the skill. Well, we found an affordable machine and decided to go for it.

We ended up buying a basic Huskqvarna Viking that was $150. How was it that cheap? Well there was $100 sale and then you could get an additional $100 by turning in an old sewing machine. Obviously, we didn’t have an old sewing machine. But, we did buy a $14 hand sewing machine in the store and turned that in for the $100 credit. Yes, it was still in its box when we turned it in.  Awesome.

Funny fact? Mark actually can sew and knows how to operate a machine really well. He grew up as 1 of 3 brothers with a single mom. My MIL taught the boys to sew so that independently they could hem pants, fix buttons and do other basic things with the machine and by hand if needed. In fact when we were first dating and visiting my family, Mark successfully sewed my younger brother a Popeye costume for a school dance. Yep, he is one talented guy. With his sewing knowledge, Mark was able to figure out that it really was a good machine and that it included all the necessary things like feet, stitches and other stuff that I didn’t understand as I stood by and smiled while he talked with the salesperson.

So that my friends is how I ended up as the proud new owner of a sewing machine. Now I just have to learn how to sew. I already completed one project and will show you the results in another post along with some plans for future projects. In the meantime I’m planning on taking some classes and am scouring the internet for sewing blogs. I promise to be honest and show you all my projects even if they are total failures. Just don’t laugh at me too much.

Do you sew? Any advice, tips, inspiration or blogs you can send my way?

What’s a new skill you want to learn?