You know you are a chronic new-hobby person when you call a friend– excitement exuding from your voice– to announce the fact that you just bought a sewing machine– and that friend responds (between fits of laughter) “Do we need to medicate you?”
Ahem.
While it is true that as a mother of three small children I may tend to be, um, a bit of an over-committer. I also tend to get so interested in so many new skills or activities that I engross myself fully for a week or a month and then, well, I get exhausted and burnt-out because I can never quite find the balance between kids and housework and hobbies and husband and…well, you get the picture. Or not, because I refuse to post what the base of our toilets look like when one of these bouts of imbalance sets in (I do have three boys living in this house. I’ll leave it at that).
So when my lovely little sewing machine arrived on my back door– we live too middle-of-nowhere-ish to actually have a machine shop nearby– I was giddy with the possibilities.
Aprons. Dresses for Lizzie. PJ pants for the boys. Skirts. Curtains. Coats. Pillows. Play tents. Bags and smocks and basically anything in Amy Karol’s beautiful Bend the Rules Sewing book. I tore open the box, expecting to somehow instantly understand the inner workings of this machine…despite the fact that even the word “machine” gives me the willies. Imagine my disappointment when I realized I did not even know how to thread a bobbin, let alone set a stitch.
The day my machine arrived, it was a glorious 70-degrees outside. I sat, with the season’s first Oberon, and read (and reread) the manual on my back porch until it was too dark to see. Frustrated with my lack of ability to comprehend or retain any of the jargon I was trying to digest, I set the manual down and went to bed.
In the middle of the night, a thunderstorm hit. So my first sewing experience ever? It had nothing to do with a needle and thread. It had to do with my sweet husband carefully drying a sopping wet sewing machine manual, which had been left in the rain.
It was a good lesson in going slow. In walking away when frustration levels rise too high. In getting creative with solutions and being able to laugh at mistakes. And in looking forward to new projects. All of these things, I do believe, will be my guidelines for sewing. Because oh, my, I do love it.
So here’s my first tutorial– just in time for Mother’s Day!
Or not. It is actually something to dress your homemade bread.
Because
it looks so naked this way, right? Really though, homemade bread
doesn’t usually last too long, but it can be kept a little bit fresher
in a linen bread bag, according to the ever-crafty-and-wonderful Amanda Soule.
For a pattern, I took an actual paper bread bag from our local bakery
and cut it down the sides so that it was only held together by its
bottom “seam.” I traced the bag onto a piece of washed linen fabric
using a fabric marking pen (that disappears when you wash it– nifty!)
and then cut it out, sewed up the two sides with a straight stitch, and
turned the bag right side out. I hand embroidered the drawstring
holder and then added a piece of ribbon through by cutting two slits
and threading the ribbon along with a safety pin. Then I used the
fabric marking pen to draw on a fresh “loaf” of bread and the phrase
“Rise up with gratitude and joy” — a nice reminder for my household
each morning. I hand embroidered these things
(which appear backwards thanks to Mac photo booth. I swear. Oh, and please ignore how Vanna White I’m being. Something about photo booth makes me act like a fool. Every time.). I plan to do a few more of these (bags, not self photo sessions) before Mother’s Day and bake some fresh bread to go with them as gifts.
Next up? An apron. And this sewing tattoo.
Okay, again, not really. But seriously. A sewing tattoo? It is too good to not post.
I probably do need to be medicated.
