Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Some Adventures in Sewing Make for a Merry Christmas!

After many years of studying fine arts and crafts, I've decided that I really need to learn to use a sewing machine. I have managed to get this far in my crafty endeavors without one, but with a baby on the way, I'd really like to be able to sew some things for the nursery. It isn't like I haven't tried a couple of times before to use a sewing machine. I always seems to get frustrated with the mechanical workings of it and give up early on. When you have as many artsy projects going on as I do, it is pretty easy to just move on to something else so that is what I've always done when it comes to using a sewing machine - until now.

Recently, my mom let me borrow a very nice Singer brand sewing machine. It has an option for 22 stitches! My mom had given me a much older sewing machine about a year ago, but it was quite intimidating to me. It was very old and beautiful, but also a little difficult to figure out because it looked primitive. This newer sewing machine is much less intimidating and has been quite easy to use. And, believe me, that is the first time that I've ever said that about a sewing machine!

Over this past weekend, I wanted to make some cloth bags for packaging Christmas presents this year. I had already cut the material and ironed it into place for sewing. My husband helped me to set up the sewing machine. He is very, very mechanically minded (lucky for me!) and worked out all the little kinks with the sewing machine in about 10 minutes. If I had known that he was such a little sewing machine genius, I would have had him helping me a long time ago. After getting the machine up and running which included printing out the online manual for it, I started sewing. Soon my husband joined in too. Out of about 12 Christmas bags made, I think that he sewed half of them himself. It seems that he really likes sewing and is probably better at it than me, but he has always been excellent with anything mechanical.

Between the two of us, we sewed enough cloth Christmas bags for most of our family's presents. We also had a really good time doing it. I'm not intimidated by the sewing machine any more! For right now, all that I can really do is a decent straight stitch, but that is enough to get me started on simple things for the nursery like some curtains and some pillows. Now I actually look forward to making those things and don't feel like there's a sewing machine road block in the way. I'm sure that my husband will help a bit too which is very nice indeed.

If you'd like to make your own cloth Christmas bags or otherwise gift bags, there was a great little tutorial about it in Etsy's blog, The Storque. Click here for the complete article and video on how to make them. (I made mine before I saw this article, but I did it much the same way.)

Also, I hope that you and yours have a wonderful, blessed Christmas!
Merry Christmas to All!

5 comments:

  1. Hooray for learning a new craft!
    My boyfriend bought a sewing machine for me last Christmas, and we actually had a contest (his idea) to see who could sew the best outfit for our dog without looking at a pattern! I won because his was too small, but I was shocked by how well he could use a sewing machine!

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  2. I can't use a sewing machine to save my life, but my DH took sewing in home ec in high school and one day just started sewing up Halloween costumes for our son and for himself. I bought him a new machine after that so I can have him do projects for me. LOL!

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  3. I want to learn to sew, too. Seems like it would be a handy skill!

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  4. Oh, those bags are really cute. That's a great idea, too, because they can be reused next year... instead of throwing away all the paper.

    Good job, too, for picking up a new, handy skill!

    ...now what else are you gonna make?

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  5. Those are cute looking bags. Sewing can be so much fun when you're talented.

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