Tonight was my second sewing class. While getting ready to head out to the class, I realized that I left my bag with some of my sewing supplies at work! For once I was able to leave on time today, and in my excitement, I left my bag under my desk. I had brought it with me this morning just in case I had to stay late and would have to go to the class directly from work. I was relieved to find out that I didn't need any thing except my fabric, scissors, and pins tonight.
Before starting anything, I accidentally knocked over my little box of pins. You can imagine that mess. Luckily, my teacher came to the rescue. Waving this metal stick in front of me, she proclaimed, "You're going to love this!" With a quick flick of the wrist, all my little pins were stuck to the magnet. I want one of those. My little plastic storage box was broken, so now what was I going to do with 100 loose pins? At this point, I pulled out $2.00 and asked to buy one of those big tomato pin cushions. I didn't want the big tomato. I was holding out for one of those pin cushions that you could slip onto your wrist, but I didn't have a chance to go to the fabric store yet. Anyway, I spent 15 minutes poking all my stupid little white pins into my new pin cushion.
Our lesson tonight included hand sewing 'Tailor Tacks' to our patterns, after which, we were shown how to carefully remove the paper patterns from our fabric. We then learned how to put thread on our bobbin, fit the bobbin onto our machines, and basically how to get the machine ready for sewing. I just learned all this terminology myself, so I'm lucky I could follow along. My apologies for not elaborating on what exactly these things are.
I sewed on my Tailor Tacks and removed the paper patterns from my fabric. My machine was threaded and humming away. It was finally time to, literally, put my foot to the pedal and start sewing. It was very intimidating at first. I felt like I was learning to drive again for the first time, but as the needle made its first slow stitches into my fabric, I knew there was nothing to worry about. It was actually fun! I sewed the two halves of the back of my robe together within minutes.
Our teacher then showed us how to use another machine for 'serging' the edges. This is a great machine. All it does is trim the edge of your material and binds of the edges so that it won't frey. Everyone in the class wanted one of those machines. Of course, one has to be very careful. One wrong pull and you could damage your pattern permanently - afterall, this machine cuts the fabric as it binds the edges. I managed to get my back seam 'serged' without any problems.
I then went on to sew on the two front parts of the robe at the shoulders. All this took the whole of three hours! Next week, I will finish my shoulders with the serger. We will also be doing the sleeves and pockets. I'm worried about the pockets. I can do the straight sewing, but the practice curves I did - not so good. I guess I will practice some more before actually working on the pockets.
I didn't think I would enjoy sewing so much. I'm already thinking about signing up for the next class. And I'll be ready with my pins and big tomato!
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