Brian recommended that I practice a few lines and corners before starting my project and I obliged. He's my 'expert' because he took the home-ec sewing class in junior high twice due to moving. I, on the other hand, took the cooking part twice due to moving and missed out on sewing all together...unfortunately my cooking skills don't quite reflect this. Anyway, he gave me a practice challenge of sewing the legs of his boxers shut - piece of cake, right?
The bobbin. My expert informed me that you only need a bobbin if you don't have a spool of thread. I thought that was weird, but whatever, so I skipped that part in the instructions.
Threading. I have a nice numbered machine that shows me all of the steps and I thought I had what was supposed to be the hardest part nailed. So I was all ready to go and off I went. And terrible things happened. The needle got jammed up and my thread kept breaking. What the heck? I called my expert back in. Oh yeah, you do need a bobbin and it goes underneath. Okay, time to make a bobbin. For whatever reason the thread kept spinning on the thing underneath the bobbin. Big mess. Oh, and remember the perfect cloudy windy day that I chose to sew on...my machine was right in front of the window and sometimes the wind really ticked me off so I had to close the window - that's where the sweat came into play. Finally, I got the bobbin down and thought that I was back in the game.
Off I went and more disaster and broken thread. I watched a few online videos, and scoured the directions - surely I was doing this right! Then my heart started beating fast - what if I have a punk machine. Will Sears believe me and send me a new one without charge?! And what a hassle that my cute creations must be put off even further? Reluctantly, I called my very patient expert into the room and explained my failures thus far. This is where I almost started crying. Before I started this project I was sure that I'd pick it up in a snap and complete my wine bag all by myself in a couple of hours. By this point there had more problems than expected and I was really frustrated and HATED asking for help - I should be the domestic queen! I let my expert sit down at the machine (ugh, so embarrassed!) and turns out I was trying to wind the thread around places it just shouldn't have been. He showed me the correct way and let me go on my way.
Off I went again sewing mad stitches all over the boxers. And my first corner - 90 degrees of perfection! My confidence was back up and I quickly started work on the wine bag.
Overall, the bag wasn't too bad at all! I really didn't like the measuring and cutting of fabric - I'm going to need some professional tools to take this seriously! By the end I had perfected my pinning and even stitches were everywhere! Hooray! I definitely need to work on my hand sewing (that's where the blood was from poking myself - not on the fabric thankfully) but overall I am so pleased with the final product. And I finished just in time for the pizza to arrive and to settle into a movie (exhausted)!
I think it can only get better from here - my next project will be a little clutch bag and one of my co-workers has asked me to make a zillion half aprons to serve as her Christmas gifts this year! Stay tuned!!
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