Sewing Projects

For those of you who are interested in various projects that I might have going on and who would like to add advice and suggestions to them, I thought I would start a couple things regarding sewing and cooking. This is for sewing.

Last October, my friend, Hollye, needed her sewing machine back. Since I'd only 'borrowed' it 13 years ago, I figured that was not an unreasonable request. With two kids in Scouts, all those badges have to be sewn on somehow and so my ever loving husband bought a sewing machine for my Christmas Present. I was so happy, you would have thought it was a diamond ring!

I figured I would start out easy, and began making aprons. My first attempt was with a Christmas towel just to see what I could do. It leaves much to be desired, but was a good start. It got a lot easier to sew when I realized my husband had installed the needle in the sewing machine BACKWARDS! Once that little flaw was fixed, it was amazing how well I could sew.

Below is my rather creative design (thought of it myself) for Beverly's apron. She wanted Blue so I bought two packs of blue dish towels and went to town. It has a bottom portion made out of two of the towels sewn together with a tie through them. The 'bib' part is a towel that overlaps the waistband to form a rag to wipe your hands out. I do believe it is hand and rather ingenious. Cheap and rather simple to make after the initial design.

Keeping with the towel theme I purchaed a large bath towel with fish on it for my brother who is quite the avid angler. I made two rather large aprons for him. They turned out pretty well but my pocket sewing technique leaves a lot to be desired. He ended up passing one along to his buddy, Red, who uses it when cleaning fish. How appropriate.

Moving on from aprons, I began a really ambitious project for me. I was actually going to follow a pattern and create a seamless drawstring bag for my children to use to carry their dance shoes to and from class.

Since it IS Irish Dance, I had to add an embellishment. I drew and cut out shamrocks to put on their bags with their initials on them. This project even involved math because the pattern was for too small of a bag. I'm very impressed with myself for doing this and the bags are still in use today and not showing any signs of falling apart!

I've made a few other things as well, but my next project is really cool. It's an apron made out of vintage fabric that Tanna found in her Grandmother's storage building. This apron will be very special to her because her Grandmother was so special to her. I'm feeling the pressure to do a good job on it. First up is the design, then I have to execute the plan. Of course, I am also running herd on 4 children, trying to keep up with my photo albums and school and dance and church and other things, but I'll get it done. No problem.

If anyone wants to share their sewing projects or hints or designs please feel free.