Learning to Sew

For Christmas my toy was a sewing machine! Growing up my mom would make my Halloween costumes and some dresses and today she owns an embroidery business, so I've always been around sewing machines but never had I tried to use one. Mom got me a Brother CS 6000i and I quickly read through the manual. My sister-in-law was visiting after Christmas and she got me started by showing me how to thread the machine - sometimes reading the directions is not quite enough. After I practiced a little on an old sheet, the first project was a sock monkey which quickly turned into 3 since all of the cousins wanted one. They turned out much cuter than I anticipated.

It was nice having a beginning project that only took some old socks; there was no worry about messing up. The pattern came from here.



My next project was a hobo bag that I purchased as a complete kit from Michael's. The pattern itself isn't the best purse ever since it is a little flimsy but it was fun to sew and I even added some of my own embellishments with a metal snap and decorative stitching.



Then I moved on to skirts for the girls using a basic rectangle as a pattern. I have a ways to go to perfect the best way to put these together for this go around it involved taking my sewing machine apart since I locked up the motor :). But I hope by summertime to have some cute outfits made for the girls.