Sewing from Patterns

Life has been pretty hectic lately with working and chasing a 13 month old around. I got a chance the other day to take another class at one of my local crafting stores, and it was a much needed break from the hustle and bustle of my day to day life. A couple of years ago for Christmas my mother gave me a sewing machine. It's nothing fancy, just a basic Brother machine. I've done a couple of projects on it out of old T-shirts (pillowcases and simple grocery bags) but I decided it wanted to learn how to do more. This class just happened to fall into one of my few days off and I was able to arrange child care, so....ME TIME!!!!

Now I had taken a few classes before to hone my cake decorating and knitting skills but this way my first attempt at doing any "real" sewing. I showed up with my machine, fabric, pattern, and all supplies in tow.

I learned to "read a pattern," (okay, the instructor helped us quite a bit), and iron on fusing, line up the straps etc. Then it was time to start the sewing. I was suprisingly nervous sewinging in front other people for the first time, but started off slow and soon felt comfortable with what I was doing. My biggest trouble was keeping my stitching straight. Luckily with my first project the thread blended in and you couldn't see it at all.

All together the project took about 4 hours from start to finish. It was a great beginner project and the results were beautiul. Our instructor did a couple of small modifications to the pattern to make the bag reversable. My fabrics were pretty similar so there's not a start contrast as opposed to the other student in my class.