My "First" Sewing Project

As I noted in my last entry, I have been obsessed with the idea of sewing. This has been steadily growing over the last few weeks, particularly since I've become unemployed. I went to Borders the other day to roam through the craft and design books. I was looking through the sewing books for ideas and found the magazine Stitch. I thought a magazine for $8 was better than buying a book for over $20-especially without an income. I flipped through the pages and oohed and ahhed at the projects. 

I have decided to make the craft bag featured in the magazine. This project was going to require me to actually buy fabric and have it cut-no more fat quarters. I made drawings to double check how much fabric I would need and made my first purposeful trip to the fabric store. I roamed around with the intention of using brown since I could use the fabric I already had for the lining. The best part was that I found the brown print below, which was pretty much the pattern I had imagined. It took me a little longer to pick the other fabric, but I love it. I am even thinking of making pillows to go with our brown couch. I was a little nervous when I went up to the counter to have the fabric cut, as I have never had to request fabric to be cut before. I double checked my drawings and requested 1/2 yard of the brown and a yard of the colored fabric.

When sewing you're supposed to wash the fabric before you use it, but because I had just done laundry and we don't move into our new apartment until next month (with a washer and dryer in the unit) I skipped this. I have always forgotten to wash fabric for previous purse projects and I haven't had any problems. 

I can say that the best tools to have when cutting fabric are a large self healing mat and a rotary cutting. These two tools, particularly the rotary cutter rock my world. Again, I was anxious as I placed ruler and blade down on the fabric. I actually did cut 2 pieces a little short, but they are the pockets so I should be fine. After ironing the pieces flat, I was ready to start and super excited. 

I sewed my first seam and was totally bummed to find out the stitches are way messed up. I gave up trying to fix the problem last night and returned to the machine this morning. I played with the tension and seam length and still hadn't fixed the problem by the time I had to leave for a hike today. I almost called my mom for help and realized that I am getting low on minutes after last week's 109 minute call to Unemployment. So tomorrow morning I will be calling Mom Tech Support. I'm hoping she can offer some help since the machine used to be her's. I'm also hoping that the machine being over 20 years old is not the problem. I really don't want to have to pay to have it fixed.  

And thirdly, I am hoping that I don't lose my sewing enthusiasm in the mean time.