Tuesday, January 22, 2008

rebecca sews.

not in straight lines. and not quickly. but sews nonetheless.

last night i began the saga that will be known as "sewing lessons". it was an interesting mix of people. one very negative, recently retired woman who has never sewn before who would put herself down for being so stupid then tell herself that it was okay and she was going to master it (yes, all aloud). a girl who looked like maybe gr.12. a mid-thirties woman. a super conservative mother and definitely homeschooled daughter in long jean skirts. and me. loving the variety.

so we got down to business right away sewing different types of seams then pinning them into our booklet of instructions. the instructor suggested we put each page of our instructions in a plastic page protector and then into a binder and while it sounds super keen...i still want to do it. here's my example of a flat felled seam - you might see these on the side of your jeans or something.

okay - so it's a little hard to see but too hard to pass up showing you.

in three hours, i sewed a few practice seams, cut out one side of my pillow fabic, sewed 7 darts, and then sewed the two pieces of my pillow together (but the middle seam is unfinished). and this is what that looks like:

you may be wondering why my pillow has darts but it's really just to learn how to do them. next week my pillow will be finished and i'll be moving onto yoga pants. ...really? from pillow to pants? we'll see...

so sewing wasn't exactly what i expected. i think i thought it would be easier. that straight lines wouldn't be so hard to come by. i had to learn to measure in inches - they're divided into 8s. weird. and sewing seems to go hand in hand with ironing since we were ironing every other seam that we sewed so that it would lay flat. i may need to take a course in ironing next. but despite all this, i'm not totally turned off. i can picture all the great things i'll be making in the future. and that is what i thought about while i sewed my darts.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh man...i love this blog! everyday gets better and better :)

Anonymous said...

If you get my name for Christmas, I want you to sew me something...with darts. Lots of darts.

rachel said...

intense. There's a lot I just take for granted about sewing... like ironing. I seem to remember disliking the beginning part of learning to sew - so finicky! so many rules! Have you clipped any curves yet? That's my major peeve, chalking where you have to clip. Just clip it! You're an intelligent person! You don't need to draw in the eensy little marks to figure out where to cut!

Okay, so... maybe this is not the way i'm going to teach sewing myself. What's the USPN of your sewing book (the number under the barcode)? I might be able to find it online to take a look.

And pants - way easier than pillows with darts. Believe me.