Craft Success!!

So my friend Mary was so wonderfully kind to show me the basics of sewing a couple weeks back!

First off, she has an awesome sewing room with bookcases, drawers, cups, and more drawers filled with sewing goodness- pom poms, ribbons, fabric, buttons, etc.. She gets much of her fabric vintage from local thrift stores...so she has some pretty interesting fabrics. It may be inappropriate to have a dedicated crafting room if you just crafted every so often, but Mary crochets, sews, or creates almost nightly after she puts her boys to bed. I love that! She's inspired me to let my creative juices flow more often- it's good for the soul!

After she helped me pick out some coordinating fabric from her room of fabric galore- we went to it. In the course of (just) 2 hours, here are some of the things I learned about sewing(you can tell I didn't have much knowledge to start with):

• how to thread a needle in a machine
• how to accurately measure and cut your fabric
• about the right tools to use
• how to guide the fabric as you're sewing
• how to start and stop properly (reverse sew, lift the needle, etc)
• how and when to pin (I never knew why those pins belonged in sewing kits!! ha!)
• how to improvise! We made the case too small- whoops! So, Mary had an idea to add ribbon to the side to give us some room. It worked!

AND in addition to learning all of that (and much more), I walked away with a finished Kindle cover. I can't wait to try my next project, any ideas? It will need to be fairly simple.

WOW! This took only 2 hours to make! Sewing is magic! 

XOXO, Rebecca

Crafting: Learning to Sew

So, I've wanted to learn to sew forever and a day. I love being creative...but I've never been in an art/craft class, sewing included (wow! that's kind of shocking, right? since I come from a family of artists and my mom sews). Most of my creative projects come from my limited knowledge of craftiness- I know how to Mod Podge amazingly well, and that's about it. IMHO-You really need to know how to sew well to make practical and cool things by hand. Here's my lesson learned- creativity can only get you so far.

Oh, I've tried to learn on my own. There was the (poorly sewn) pillow project. A couple of (poorly) hemmed dresses. My mom even gave me a new sewing machine (that I wanted so badly) a few years back, and I spent 2+ hours trying to figure out how to thread and sew with this said sewing machine, to no avail (pretty pathetic considering I had the directions too). Then this year there was the Christmas stockings: I can cut out designs, use the iron to attach the felt, but once I needed to sew to finish the project- I choked.

All that to say-- I think it's finally happening! A friend of mine from church has offered to teach me to sew. And it's not just an offer any more- we have set a date (this Thursday) to get started with the lessons. I am completely ecstatic to learn from this master sewer! Who-hoo! She's going to help me learn how to make a padded Kindle cover for my new Kindle. :) I'm super thrilled!!

Beware, you may soon be gifted with an amateurish hand-sewn thingamajig ;)


xoxo, Rebecca