Sew fun!

An under-appreciated and oft-overlooked skill is sewing. I wish that I had the option to learn to sew in addition to the introductory cooking lessons in junior high home economics. Luckily, I learned to hand sew during arts and crafts in sixth grade (with some tips from my mother) but I never had the privilege of learning to sew on a machine. A few months ago, after much debate and research, and just a few borrowed experiences on my MIL's machine, I bought myself a sewing machine. Out of the box, it was/is so fun to see things come together within hours. I still have much to learn, but I love that the machine sews faster, neater, better, and more variety of stitches than I could ever achieve by hand.

Singer® Touch & Sew (TM) 7462 Electronic Sewing Machine

Recently, rather than dreaming up projects and trying to execute them with scribbled calculations and diagrams, I started to follow the Sewing for Dummies book. I was previously just using it as a reference guide because the projects seem dated and a bit quirky (some pictures remind me of tacky flea market sells). But within the dated projects and mostly black and white instructions, there are a lot of tips, tricks, and basic sewing knowledge to be had. I am slowly cobbling together sewing skills!

Even though things still don't come out perfectly, it is much easier (with better results) to follow step-by-step instructions than to do things my way (at least for now, while I don't have much experience). And I would've never imagined how much goes into getting good results (like the need for ironing before turning a piece inside out). Now the next step is to move somewhere where I can have a sewing room -- constantly moving things onto and off the dining table is getting old.

Learning weekend

This weekend, MIL and I sorta bonded over the sewing machine. I guess all her nitpickiness and exacting standards (to the way she wants things, not necessarily always the best way) pay off when she's teaching or trying to impart wisdom (often she'll just come across, somewhat annoyingly, as a 'know-it-all'). I don't have a sewing machine (yet!) and I've just started learning how to use one, so I really appreciated her help with hemming my jeans. I can sew by hand without many problems but the machine is a different story. Even by hand I've found hemming pants tricky (especially when you try to do the hidden seams -- no idea what that's really called) so hemming pants by machine = very daunting task (and yet not worth the $10/pair of pants at the tailor, imo). But this weekend I saw that it's not so bad, even kinda fun. I'm not sure if I can remember all the steps but I can't wait to try hemming on another pair (maybe pj pants, since there's less at stake there)!

Despite all the bonding (and there wasn't a whole lot) I still don't know what to call her.