The First Stitch

Yet another miserable day outside. And I got spend part of it burying a ginormous dead rabbit that my oh-so-lovable cat hunted in the night. Thank god for Ryan who dug the hole and shovelled the rabbit into it. I don’t know what I would have done. My only consolation was that it was an adult rabbit instead a baby.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill

(If you have an outdoor cat- or maybe even an indoor cat- I’m sure this will make sense to you)

Anyway, I have finished cutting out the fabric. I’m realizing I probably should have pressed the fabric before I cut it out (yes, I just read a short article on the difference between pressing and ironing. Who knew) but I’m just going with the flow here.

This is also making me think about how helpful the internet has been so far. Youtube videos, websites, blogs, etc. have all been utilized so far and I’m going to need a lot more before the end of this project.

Woops... stitches get a little close there

But my first piece of real sewing/ironing is done. Ahhhhhh!! I hemmed the bottom ruffle of my apron with a ‘narrow hem.’ The video I watched told me to do a straight line of stitches and then fold over the stitches and iron and fold it over again and iron again. Then you stitch it as close to the bottom as possible. But since my ruffle is rounded at the bottom I had to pinch it in certain areas so that it appeared like a nice curved line at the bottom. Holy caroli! That’s hard. My hem is serviceable, which is about what I hoped for but not straight. The stitches kind of waver between very close to the bottom and a few millimeters above the bottom, but I did it! Time for a break.

Frustration

Well it is a cold, rainy gross day outside. I’d like to snuggle up with my laptop and play the Sims with a cup of tea. But instead I’ll dig out a room heater from the overloaded storage room and trek up to the dining room to start my project.

Nevermind. No space heater is to be found. Microwaved bean bag it is.

Lo and behold, I found a bobbin with exactly the yellow that I want! I wasn’t expecting that. I figured I would have to do the complicated process on the machine where you unwind thread from the regular thread thingy (there must be a name for it but I’m pretty happy I remembered ‘bobbin’ so for now it’s the ‘thread thingy’) onto the bobbin. Much frustration and googling avoided. For now.

I have decided to get rid of the Scary Monster and use my mom’s old sewing machine, the one that I learned on. I know they can’t be all that different but since I’m so new to this I’m going to stick to what I know when I can. Also to note, Professor Pincushion youtube videos have saved my life. Huge thanks to them for their videos on how to cut out sewing patterns and how to lay them out on the fabric. I also managed to lose my instructions and spent a half hour in a cursing rage searching the house for it. I did find it in the end. It had slipped off my bed, where I was reading it last, and onto the floor at the head of the bed where it could not be seen. 

All of the pattern cut-outs

This is a tricky business

Today I have succeeded in cutting out the pattern, pinning it to the fabric in (almost) the way the instructions told me and cutting out the fabric. It took me hours and hours just to do that. You have to pay attention to grain lines and folds in the fabric and the little triangles. Not to mention marking all of the important symbols on the fabric itself with the fabric pencil and/or marker. The woman at Fabricland gave me a healthy bit of extra fabric which came in handy when one pattern piece didn’t fit on the fabric in the way instructions said. I probably could have fit it on if I’d wanted to unpin everything else I’d already done and redo it. But who wants to do that? So I used some of my extra. Now I have my pattern pieces all ready for sewing!

Phew! Got them all cut out

To Sew or to Knit. That is the Question...

Considering myself a somewhat creative person I decided a couple of months ago that I wanted to sew myself one of those cute aprons that keep popping up in gift stores. You know the vintage kind with the ruffles and neat fabric? I thought it would go perfect with my sometime-image of a 50’s housewife that my boyfriend seems to find amusing and adorable. Amusing because I can’t actually cook very well…

Being more into knitting for several years now, the idea of sewing something as large as this is quite daunting. Sure, I took home economics in middle school and I have done some mending and small projects with a sewing machine. But I’m the type that has to either ask, or spend a good chunk of time figuring out how to thread the sewing machine every single time that I use it before I can even get started.

In a way, I am lucky to have a mother who clearly has the knowledge to help a daughter like me (she sewed her wedding dress by herself!). However, getting her to actually help is a bother and probably why I never got into sewing that much. Now my parents have gone to Arizona for a month and I’m left taking care of their place, their dog and their (my) cat. What a perfect time to figure out for myself how to sew using a pattern! At least that’s what I thought…

Last Thursday, while my poor Volkswagen was in the shop, I braved jaywalking across 4 lanes (including suicide lane so actually 5) and the October storm to get to the local Fabricland. There I picked a pattern for nice little apron and asked one of the employees which type of fabric I would need (the pattern listed several) and where I could find it. I poked around for a while looking for something with a neat design on it and kept coming back to a sweet checked yellow and white print with little pink flowers on it. Cutesy…yes. It’s for fun, right?

These photos don't do the yellow colour justice

Today I sat down and actually tried to read the pattern. Oh. My. God. What does any of this mean? I can’t even figure out the first sentence. I know people who look at the knitting patterns I use and go “huh?!” but for me, it’s the simple task of typing the stitch into knittinghelp.com and once I have it down I’m good to go. This felt like a totally different language. Why isn’t it just a cut out the pattern and sew it together in the order the instructions say type of deal? I expected there to be some fuss about gatherings and whatnot but this? What have I gotten myself into.

On top of this, my dad very sweetly took out one of the old sewing machines from storage before he left and went through the trouble of searching online for instructions on how to use it, which he then printed and left for me on the table. Aw thanks, Dad! Except this is not the machine that I learned on and it looks like a big pain in the you-know-what to me. Dilemma: try to use the scary monster machine or dig out the one I learned on and pretend that I used the monster? I don’t want to risk offending my dad when he did something so nice for me. Perhaps I should just use the good one and be honest about it. Oh darn.

The Monster

Next time I write I’ll hopefully have actually started.