The Adventure Begins - Part 1

So, you might be asking yourself, why would a 38 year old woman take up sewing as a hobby, and garment sewing at that? OK, maybe you wouldn't be asking yourself that, but I'm gonna tell you anyway.

I've always enjoyed doing "crafty things". When I was about 5, I made potholders with a potholder loom and sold them around the neighborhood. Over the years, I've done needlepoint, crochet (regular and thread), knitting, that kind of thing. But I tend to rotate through them, and can never seem to finish any one project very quickly. Most of my medium to large projects have taken me years to complete. In fact, I have a few ones still outstanding.

In that time, I've done very, very little sewing. It's kind of odd really; my grandmother sewed. My mom did some sewing too, AND she fixed sewing machines at Sears. So, while I did learn how to work a sewing machine and even got far enough with sewing to make a pair of crop pants when I was 13 or 14, it never really took.

I think part of the reason was that I was intimidated by it. I thought it would be difficult to learn, and then there's the start up cost. A crochet hook and a skein of yarn costs maybe $5. But even an inexpensive sewing machine costs $100+.

A while back though, we started having dinner every other week at my in-laws. My DMIL is the SWEETEST woman in the world and knows ALL of the nearly forgotten home skills; she still makes biscuits from scratch, she cans her own veggies, and she still sews.

Our bi-weekly visits turned into a great excuse to work on different projects. The first project we worked on was a patch-work blanket for my son (she's ALWAYS, ALWAYS working on something or another for the grandkids). We did one side in denim squares with embroidery on some of them, and the other in squares using a space theme (OK, the two sides don't exactly match - but it's a great blanket for all that!). With her to help push me along, we got that done in pretty good time.

In the middle of that project, she made a circle skirt and a gypsy costume for my daughter.

Between helping her out with my son's blanket, and watching how she did my daughter's outfits, I got bitten by the bug. And as she is quite the sweetest woman in the world, she readily agreed to help me learn how to sew clothes.

So, I investigated sewing machines online, and patterns too. I picked what I wanted, and on July 4th, 2006, I went to WalMart and bought my first sewing machine. It's a Brother C6000i - nothing real fancy, but it's been a great starter machine so far. At the same time, I bought a few different patterns, and some material to get started with.

Then, I started sewing... whew!!! I think I'll save that for Part 2!