Can't Believe I'm Sewing (sort of...)

Although I own a sewing machine -- have for years -- I cannot sew. My Grandmother sewed. When I was little, she would make clothes for me (wish we had kept some of those). She was the one who hemmed all our pants and did other minor alterations to our clothes. I got the sewing machine so I could learn to make quilts, clothes, whatever my imagination could dream up. Unfortunately, the little Singer sat in it's box, in a closet for way too long. Yes, it was pulled out occasionally ... I've played with it a little and my husband has used it, but it's never been allowed to live up to its full potential.

I've been psyching myself up to dig out the sewing machine and actually learn to use it. I thought I'd start simple. These pillow covers looked simple enough, but the more I thought about it, the more intimidated I became.  So,  I caved and bought a little hand held Stitch Sew Quick.

Good thing this was an impulse buy at Hancock Fabrics. It got horrible reviews and Amazon. I probably wouldn't have bought it if I'd done any pre-purchase research. Oh well, it seems to work just fine. Anyway, I don't view my buying the Stitch Sew quick as a stumble on my quest to learn to sew. It's a baby step ... and baby steps are good since I need early successes in order to continue learning a new skill.

With my handy Stitch Sew Quick and some fabric, I dove into pillow cover making. Turns out, it wasn't bad at all. I had 2 pillow inserts and I made covers for both of them. They're not perfect, but I thought they turned out nicely! Roll Tide!

 

What I didn't show you in the pictures is that I got BRAVE and changed the instructions a little for the smaller pillow. The front is Alabama, but the back is houndstooth. I'm pretty proud of that little deviation. 

With this success under my belt, the sewing machine emerged from the closet. I put thread in that baby and have been experimenting. My skills are definitely basic, but I managed to make more pillow covers and 3 placemats (I didn't have enough fabric for four). Pictures of those will come in a later post.

So, thanks to Pinterest for constantly showing me cute sewing projects, to Rae Gun Ramblings for  posting the pillow cover tutorial and making it sound so simple, and to my little Stitch Sew Quick for giving me the confidence to begin learning to sew!