Adventures in Sewing

I have probably mentioned before that I am not big on sewing.  Despite that, it seems like a good skill to have.  I fully realize though, that similarly to knitting, I suspect I like the idea of sewing more than actually sewing.

A few years ago (3, 4, maybe even 5!) I got my hands on an old sewing machine.  It was one of those friend-of a friend-of a coworker knew someone giving away an old sewing machine.  I brought it home, plugged it in and saw that it worked.  Then it sat in a spare bedroom until recently.  I always meant to figure out how to use, but never got around to doing it.  This year with the help of my mom I finally got the sewing machine working.  In a way I'm glad I put it off for so long.  The machine is from the 50s and the instruction manual is sparse to put it nicely.  I would never have figured it out on my own.  Luckily my mom knows her way around sewing machines and was able to help me.  I've since found out that there are a lot of Youtube tutorials for old sewing machines.

I first tried making some straight seams which was incredibly difficult - keep in my mind this was my first time using a sewing machine ever!  Even my husband who normally only says nice things about my work, no matter how wonky, admitted that I could "use some more practice".  After some more practice, I decided to try my hand at making a skirt.

This is actually the second skirt I made.  Two years ago I found what looked like an incredibly easy pattern - actually more of a tutorial - and decided to try making it.  By hand.  Well, that's actually not entirely true - someone was nice enough to volunteer to hem it for me.  The pattern calls for finding fabric with a nice sealed hem so that hemming is not required.  The only fabric that I could find had print on the hem so that didn't work out too well.  I later realized that I probably bought quilting cotton, but the pattern was so cute it didn't matter.  The rest of the skirt was made by hand.

This year, with the sewing machine working, I decided to make another skirt.  Again, the only cute fabric I could find was quilting cotton so I had to hem the bottom hem.  More sewing machine practice...  The seams are very wonky and choosing white thread for an orange based fabric was probably not the smartest idea, but it will do.  I only wear these skirts for around the house anyways.

Overall, I'm happy I finished my first project although I realize I will need a lot more practice before making anything fit to wear outside the house.  That's OK though, I never had any grand ideas about making my own clothes.

Some thoughts on sewing:

• sewing with a sewing machine is much faster than by hand.  This may be stating the obvious, but again, keep in my I have never used a sewing machine and they always intimidated me  
• Many things can go wrong with a sewing machine!  At one point I had to pull out the needle when the threads got really tangled
• We could now figure out how to adjust the stitch length.  It seemed like no matter what setting we tried, we only got microscopic stithces
• The bobbin winder part of the machine does not work:(

I'm not sure how much more I will sew, but I did buy fabric for another skirt.  After that, we will see.