Confessions

I have a confession… Of all the crafty, diy things that I love, there is one thing I hate. Sewing. It’s not that I haven’t been taught or tried, though. When I was younger, my mom tried to teach me to sew. She even bought me a sewing book for kids that made it “simple and easy”. Her machine hated me. It wouldn’t sew for me, but Mom could just come in, not change any knobs or settings, and it’d just work for her. That machine had favorites.

Then my grandma tried to teach me to sew. Her machine was at least 50 years old, but that was good. It was simple. I got the hang of the straight stitch and even sewed some placemat purses. Be impressed. But I never moved on to sewing with patterns and fabric you had to buy and cut.

Now it gets really ridiculous. When Hubby and I got married, we bought a couch together. I loved the couch, but it came with the most hideous pillows you’ve ever seen in your entire life. We did not have any room in our budget for non-essentials, so new pillows were out of the question. Plus, Hubby loved the old pillows. Figures, right? So, I got the grand idea to buy a $20 cheapo sewing machine at Target and recover the pillows. HAHAHA is all I have to say about that. The sewing machine would not stay put and I literally had to chase its crazy, rattling self all around the table while trying to sew. That problem, plus the whole, I-just-traced-around-the-other still-stuffed-pillow-to-get-a-pattern thing really made for a lovely (cough cough) product. Three sides of the pillow were livable. The fourth side was so wonky, you had to tuck and hide the crazy-long corner under the pillow. It basically had a tail. Ridiculous. Hubby has not let me live it down. I wish I had pictures of it.

After that, I gave up for a while and just stuck to paper crafts. Until that fateful day I saw a cross stitch of a cat holding a wine glass with a funny saying that I thought my aunt would love for Christmas. She had just adopted a cat, so it was going to be perfect for her. I worked and worked on that thing and got the farthest I’ve ever gotten on a cross stitch. I pretty much loathed every second because I’m NOT a patient person, but I kept thinking of her happy face when she opened it and that kept me stitching away. Then, halfway through sewing the head, I realized I did it in the wrong place and now the head and the body were quite detached from each other. Oops. I gave that project to my mom to save and gave my aunt some candles for Christmas. We’ll see how Mom rescues the poor cat. It may turn out like a giraffe cat with a reeeeaaaaally long neck. Ha! Hubby AND his parents have not let me live that one down either.

Now you think I’ve learned my lesson, right? Nope. Mom gave me her sewing machine…yes the one that hates me. I found a great online tutorial for sewing scarves that one of my favorite bloggers did and decided I was gonna sew. I went to Joann’s and picked out fabric which took approximately 10 years to do and raised my blood pressure to unhealthy heights, I’m sure. There was too much selection and I stink at mixing and matching when there’s too many options. But, somehow I made it out of the store in one piece and started my scarves with excitement picturing how adorable they were going to turn out.

My scarf project was actually going pretty well at first. See how proud I am that I’m sewing? These pictures were to send to my mom so she could be all impressed with my mad skills.

And an obligatory “Sam is crazy” picture…

It was all peachy… until I ran out of thread. I couldn’t remember how to thread the machine. Seriously. My friend Charity totally bailed me on that one and let me lug my million pound sewing machine over to her house, taught me how to thread my machine (I literally numbered my machine with a Sharpie. No joke.) and even taught me how to make a crib sheet. That was my finest sewing moment, by the way, and I feel like the inventor of the Magic Bullet when I put that sheet on Little One’s bed. 🙂 But back to the scarves…that were supposed to be Christmas presents for my cousin, sister, and friend Julia. Um yeah…that was 3 years ago. And they are still waiting to be finished in my sewing box. My blood pressure just couldn’t take the machine tangling up my thread another time.

I’ve since donated everything else from my sewing box to my mom and swore I’d never try sewing again. I hate picking out fabric, I hate threading needles, I hate trying to fix jammed machines, I hate cutting fabric, I hate pinning fabric, I hate how much time it takes to finish something. I’m just too impatient for sewing. My blood pressure just can’t handle it. Fabric is just not my friend.