Come on feel the craftiness

When I get a new interest in my life, I tend to become obsessed. I don't jump into many new things without becoming absolutely drenched in them. I want to read everything I can find about them, I want to practice whatever the new passion is, I want to talk about it, think about it, live it and breath it. Whether it's cooking or writing or running or photography or triathlons...  I go in whole-heartedly. At first. Sometimes I then revert into a 12-year-old kid who SWORE he wanted a guitar, who plays it for about three weeks and then decides he DEFINITELY wants to go to art school. The obsession might die off in a matter of weeks or months. Sometimes years. Some passions, though, do stick around, albeit in less frenzied versions.

I'm in my first flush with sewing. It's impossible to know how long it will last. In the beginning, it always feels like forever. So take this with a grain of salt: I'm really enjoying this.

First I practiced making... pockets. Little bits of fabric that I sewed together like pockets without any pants. Listen, they sound ridiculous. I know. But they're actually cute. And I'm using them! I stuffed a little notebook and a book of prayers and a pen in one and just like that, it's a... prayer pocket. Look, I don't know what it is, but it was my first attempt at sewing. I hand sewed two of these pockets before I bought my sewing machine.

I purchased a Singer Esteem III. It's cute and mobile. I have absolutely no knowledge about sewing machines and nothing to compare it to, but whatever. I like it. The only thing I don't like about it is the fact that it was obviously purchased before and returned. How do I know this? Well, the instruction manual is filled with writing, with the Spanish sections crossed out. Um, hello, Target! Might want to looksie at the manual before you package it back up as if it is brand new and fool me into forking over my money for what I think is a new machine.

Also, it took me about four hours to locate the little baggie of accessories that come with the machine. Why? Because instead of coming in a nice vacuum-sealed package set carefully in the box, they were tucked into a mysterious drawer on the machine itself. My friend tells me this is where they always are, and I suppose it does say ACCESSORIES DRAWER right on the front of it but I don't know, I still blame that woman who returned it before me.

Once I located all the pieces and got to work, and once my friend Jen (who wants everyone to know she isn't skinny, even though she IS (and who will probably be mortified at this because she's such an I)) came over to show me a few things, like the fact that I don't need to press the pedal so hard that it ZOOMS out of control fast... I got to crafting.

I made two pillow covers for some old throw pillows. Here's one...

 

 

Fabric from Arts and Scraps! Meaning that in materials, this cost me about $1, if that.

I then moved on to something I've been really itching to make. A "softie" stuffed animal. I've had this book in my house for months, just staring me down, telling me to just buy a sewing machine already so I could make cute little animals for my EIGHT pregnant friends.

And so I did. My first try was a cute little beetle.

 

It turned out pretty well. I bought some thicker thread today, which would have helped to make the face features stand out more.All the fabrics were from Arts and Scraps. It was hard to find scraps that seemed to go together and that were the right material, but I think in the end it worked out to be cute.

Now today, I caved, and went and bought a heap of fabric. It was on sale! And I had a coupon!

And as I mentioned earlier, I have EIGHT pregnant friends. That is a lot of baby shower gifts.

I really hope none of them read my blog, and I'm pretty sure they don't. Is so STOP READING!

Because I want you to be surprised when you open a cute homemade bib from me! Here's my first attempt, which will go to Luke.

It was hard to get a good photo of the fabric, which features tons of little robots. The back is made with terry cloth perfect for wiping messy faces and hands when meal-time is over. I need to add a snap or some velcro as a closure, and then it'll be done. I think I'll be making a lot of these bibs!

As long as the sewing bug lasts anyway.

And lookie here! Although I have no plans to stop crafting, one item from my list is officially crossed off!