Sunday, February 15, 2009

Learning to Sew

I've sewn before. Not on a regular basis or anything, but a little here and there. A few months ago, I finally bought my own sewing machine. I have several sewing projects that I would like to take on. So my first project that I started was making liners for Ella's cloth diapers. I cut my fabric, got the machine out and started to sew - and then I quickly jammed the machine. Ugh! I couldn't get the thread out, so my sister came over and helped me with it. She determined that I needed to change my tension and maybe my needle for the fabric that I was using. So the machine sat, untouched, for a couple of months. Then, this weekend, my mother-in-law stayed with us. While she was here, I had her give me a few pointers on the machine. She worked on the tension and showed me what I was doing wrong and how to fix it in the future. She gave me some tips on laying out my patterns and general sewing hints. This weekend, I made some bean bags for Arin and a hat for Ella and I started on making a curtain for Arin's room, but my mother-in-law actually ended up doing more than half of that project. She also mended a couple of pairs of Andy's work pants.

Arin was very interested in what we were doing. So I let her take her first lesson in sewing - putting the pins in the pin cushion. This was my first step as a kid too. My mom did a lot of sewing when I was little and I used to love to play with the pin cushion. Arin seemed to have as much fun as I remember having.

3 comments:

Super Fun Mama said...

I remember playing with pin cushions too. I love things that are sewn but I can't sew for my life. In concept it always seems like something I can do and then I try and it ends up going in my large closet of unfinished projects, lol.

Peterson Party said...

That's too funny. Hopefully I will actually finish what I start! My husband already thinks the sewing machine was a waste of money. I guess I better get busy and prove him wrong :)

Fairion said...

How cool! Froggy's first sewing lesson was putting the pins in the pin cushion too. She also gets to push the lever to make the machine go in reverse to end the seams.

Sewing is such fun with little ones. Froggy loves to tell everyone how "Mommy and I sewed this dress together"