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?
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| 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.
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| The Monster |
Next time I write I’ll hopefully have actually started.
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