sew fun

In yet another step to officially becoming a domestic goddess, I recently came into possession of a sewing machine. The only time that I have ever used a sewing machine was in my high school home ec class when we all had to sew a pillow shaped like the first letter of our names. Now, you may be thinking that an L would be pretty easy to sew compared to other letters, but it was still pretty darn difficult and my L came out lopsided and I received a B, which I think was the lowest grade our home ec teacher ever gave out. But that was just fine; I didn't need or want to know how to sew because this gal was going to marry a millionaire anyhow and it would be the House of Versace sewing my clothes...

Well, I never married that millionaire and I have yet to own anything Versace. And though I wasn't outfitting myself in all these designer duds, I still never, ever gave any thought to sewing. Not until recently, that is, when I decided that our new couch needed some new throw pillows and being outraged at the cost of the things.

It was in conversation with my mother-in-law when I mentioned briefly that I might try to make pillows instead of buying them, never imagining that I just started a snowball effect that would bring an actual sewing machine into my house.

I thought about sewing pillows by hand. After all, how hard is it to cut out a square and pull some needle and thread. Then something more brilliant came to mind; I would bring the material to my mother (who has been sewing all her life) and get her to actually sew the pillow for me. Genius.

But remember that brief mention to my mother-in-law about the pillows? Well, she took that seriously. A few days later I was invited to go with her to a sewing convention (yes, those exist and are exactly what you imagine them to be like) and the next thing you know my in-laws got me an early birthday present...a sewing machine.

Yay?!?

My Sew Fun

Now I had a sewing machine. And to be honest, it was intimidating. I had no clue how to use it and well, all my other attempts at being Martha Stewartlike pretty much failed. Also, I have this tendency to give up easily when things don't work out on my first attempts. Now, however, I had something that cost a good deal of money and was proudly given to me as a gift, so just giving up was not really an option. I had to show something for it.

I did get some sewing tips from my mother-in-law and the instruction manual for the machine was a god send (could it be any more complicated to thread these things?). And after heading on over to Jo-Ann's (very first time in that store), I picked out a sewing blog -  i heart nap time, which I highly recommend for any newbie sewers like me -  for easy instructions on how to sew an envelope pillow cover and decided to give the whole thing a go.

Most people would recommend practicing on the machine a bit, but I decided that practicing was for chumps and just got started. I measured (with a tape measure because I don't have one of those fabric measuring tape things), cut out my fabric and took it to the machine. During the whole process, I was on the verge of giving up several times and it took me waaaaaay longer than 20 minutes and forget about keeping a straight line but....

TA-DA

It looks like a pillow, y'all!

The thing turned out all right, and I was pleasantly surprised. When I showed it to Sean, he too seemed very surprised and the first thing he said was "I didn't think it would come close to actually looking like a pillow." Yay for me! It's a pillow that looks like a pillow!

Now, if you look closely at it, the work is shoddy and it doesn't quite fit because I measured wrong, but it's a pillow and I'm quite proud to have it on my couch.

Doesn't quite fit...

so we keep the back hidden.

And I am very excited to sew more on my new machine. I doubt I'll be sewing up anything truly remarkable, but pillows...there will be a lot of pillows.