A new adventure - or a revisit of sorts

I've never been a "sewer", no not a sewer as in plumbing, but as in sewing things together - I think the correct term for that is seamstress perhaps :)

I've done this or that here and there - but my first "big break" into sewing was a quite ambitious project. Back in 2002 when I was pregnant with Thing 3 I could NOT find any nursery bedding in the "scheme" I was wanting - moon & stars but in yellow and sunset purple type colors - so I set about on an adventure .... and adventure in sewing. My lovely husband bought me a brand new sewing machine (middle of the road type), some "accessories" - you know, some bobbins, a seam ripper, that sort of thing. I picked out some cute fabric and a pattern set (which I THINK I still have even) and went to work - I created her bed quilt, bumper pad, crib skirt, wall hanging, valance and an "organizer" (it was called a crib organizer on the pattern, but really it was for diapering supplies so we hung it on the changing table) as well as a diaper stacker.

I'd never done anything so "ambitious" before. My previous bouts of sewing usually involved a home ec teacher, a lame bag or pair of "boxer" shorts that never quite came out "right" but good enough to pass, or a half finished "quilt" project with a friend back in my days overseas.

But I met this challenge head on, completed all the items, decorated the nursery - a short time later the baby came and then ---- we moved ---- before Thing 3 ever got to actually SLEEP in her nursery --- eh - oh well right LOL! I'd also like to mention that I also spent MANY hours painting vertical stripes on the bottom portion of her walls (alternating white, sunset yellow and purple) as well as the upper wall the sunset yellow then stenciling on moon & stars and applying a border.

Ultimately what happened to that nursery set? Well I eventually put it into a garage sale - where it sold to a family member for dirt cheap ---- for her grandbaby.

The sewing machine was packed in it's box after that project was completed and moved a handful of times (4 to be exact) to where it has been resting comfortably (in it's original box) in the closet of my craft room (you see I have other hobbies too - those include scrapbooking and rubber stamping) - .... well with slight exception to this one time when we pulled an "extreme master bedroom makeover" for my mom while she was out of town and I sewed a custom cover out of a beautiful silk fabric for the window seat cushion - that rested on the new window seat my father and I built ---- we won't talk about how much she HATED the makeover when she got home, that'd have to be a whole nother blog ... :) Love you mom - and in her defense, she loved the room, just not the blue - who knew that while blue was her favorite color it just isn't a color she'd like to fall asleep to :)

But I digress.....

About a month or so ago I started seeing fellow Stampin UP! demonstrators (yea, that's what I do besides play mommy) posting photos of these really cute Rag Bags they've made using the Big Shot die cutting machine and a Scallop Square die. I yearned to make one - considering I had the machine, the die, and well, that long forgotten sewing machine. I was just scared - scared because it'd been so long....scared I wouldn't have a CLUE what I was doing though EVERYONE said "these are so easy and so addicting" ----

I did what any girl/crafter would do - I forwarded it to a friend who sews and said "hey, I want to make one of these, cute huh" in hopes she'd say something amazing like "oh yea, I'll make one for you" or "wow those are amazing, I'm sure I can totally give you a step by step hands on tutorial right now" hahahah - well J did something even more awesome - she hung out with me for an entire day with her sewing machine on one side of the table, mine on the other (yea it finally got to take a nice deep fresh breath) and we set to work following a few directions shared by a fellow demo and we did it ---- we created one of those bags --- I ... me.... the lady who doesn't sew - created one of those bags -

It's not perfect, and we learned a few "things" along the way ----- but I did it -

My husband was thrilled to see the $200 sewing machine out of the box - so much so that he said "Oh good, now you should sew Thing 2s patches on his scout shirt" --- UHHH that's a little ambitious honey.....

I was thrilled that I did it

and J was thrilled because now we had yet another thing we can do while our Preschool Things played dress up with each other :)

THIS is the start of a whole new world for me... a world that I am greatly enjoying...but my pocketbook not so much... that poor little purse I made, well it's poor now that is for sure - I keep finding myself finding MORE projects I want to try and that means MORE fabric to purchase and thread and bobbins and this and that and who knew there where so many kinds of fusible this and that ... whew ...

The other good news - the iron is getting a workout too --- I forgot we even OWNED an iron .... how sad is that?

So - with this blog I'm not going to make any great claims to post daily, or even weekly, or heck, this might end up being the one and ONLY post I ever make - as I may have to file bankruptcy for my Joanns purchases LOL - but this, well I thought this would be a good spot to share any of my projects I make - wether they are works of art or total flops ....

Just a little bit of sharing from me, the Not Sew Experienced sewer :)

PS: I'll NEVER claim to have an original idea here I'm sure - so I'll do my BEST to give credit where credit is due when I use someones idea here - if you EVER see YOUR original idea shown here in one of my projects and I didn't give you credit, do send me a note so I can properly expose your talent to the world (or my mom who will likely be the only one who ever reads this --- or not since I outted her disdain over the extreme master bedroom makeover :)