Demystifying the Bobbin

Last year for Christmas, my secret Santa sent me a sewing machine.  I have been dying to get into it, but I didn't have anywhere to set it up, given that my craft room was an absolute pit until the recent upgrades.  I'd been sitting around saying, "I want to start sewing.  I want to get out the sewing machine." but with school and choir and whatnot, even though I had the space, I didn't have the time.  Finally I decided I needed to open it because I just needed some stress relief.  So one fine night I broke the machine out of the box.  I didn't want to bid 2013 adieu without having sewed something, anything.  Plus, it's on my bucket list to learn to sew.

The first test of course was to figure out how to thread the machine.   I could have asked any of a number of people to help me learn to thread it, but ultimately, I really wanted to learn to do it myself and generally I find that when people teach other people how to do something, they actually do it and the learner observes.  And I don't learn that way.  I learn by doing.  So I was determined to do it on my own.  I cracked open the box and got that first whiff of plastic and metal and Styrofoam, and it was nearly a religious experience.  I immediately fell in love with a piece of machinery.  This sucker holds possibility.  I can make things. 

So after unpacking everything, I found a Quick Start guide and tried to follow it.  It told me about winding the bobbin, and to be honest, I had no idea what a bobbin was for or what exactly it did.  But I wound it.  The first issue I had was that the directions showed putting the thread through the bobbin and then clicking it into a little channel.  There were no words, only pictures and every time I tried to click the thread into the channel, the thread broke.  I couldn't figure this out (directions with only pictures also mystify me, which is why whenever I buy furniture that is "some assembly required", I call my friend Andy to come rescue me.  Although to be fair, I did build my bureau single-handedly, which is pretty stinking impressive).  Eventually I realized that the thread is supposed to break, not click, but it was very perplexing for a few minutes and I probably wasted half a yard of thread trying to figure it out.  Once I got the bobbin wound and in place (again, with it broken off into a channel), it was time to thread the machine.  I have done this before--when I went to get my MA in rehabilitation of the blind, we had to thread a sewing machine, but it was under blindfold, which is very different than when you can actually see it.  But it was a fairly simple process except at the end, when I had to try and use this little arm to swing the thread in towards the needle.  In the end, it turned out to be a needle threader, and so when I realized that, I gave up and just threaded the thing by eye.  No problem at all.  I tested out the machine by sewing a line of stitches down a piece of fabric, and it seemed to be working, so I surmised I was ready to go!

In the past, I've made pillows under my mother's supervision.  They've turned out well--I made huge pillows for my bed in my dorm in college, and I've made some throw pillows and some Christmas pillows.  But I wanted to go beyond that.  So I decided to consult my Pinterest board of "learning to sew" projects.  I had pinned a project some time ago called "Fat Quarter Bags", which appealed to me because there wasn't much measuring involved, and numbers just do my head in.  I thought that this would be a great thing for me to try that would break me out of the pillow genre and into something more interesting.  The bags are found on the blog Diary of A Quilter (who also own the picture).  In reading the post, it appears she made a new and improved tutorial, but my link is to the tutorial I used, and I found it was fine except for one teensy little issue, which I will tell you about in a minute.

Anyway, so I settled on making these bags.  I had a ton of fat quarters that I got on sale and had just been sitting around, so I chose a couple of them and some ribbon.  I followed the directions meticulously, and it took nearly two hours, but I finally had this:

Not bad, right?  Yeah, except the one issue!  I put the handle on inside out.  Grrr.  I was so miffed.  The bag is sort of reversible except that you stitch it shut on the inside and that stitching is visible.  So I decided to make a second bag with the handles on the right way.  Only, I was out of that particular ribbon, so I had to use a different ribbon.  And it took only about 30 minutes this time before I had this:

But this is a bit of a cheat, given that the ribbon is two sided.  But what the heck.  Both the bags look great.  I offered one to Leah, but she wanted to pick her own fabric so she decided I should make another one.  Well, after making 3 of them, I was something of a professional.  I started experimenting a little bit with adding a pocket to the front, but clearly my measuring skills need work because the pocket was so narrow it's not actually good for anything, but it was worth trying.

Then one morning I was working on schoolwork and I heard little footsteps coming down the stairs and I heard, "Mama!  Where are you?"  So I told Leah I was working on schoolwork and she said, "I thought you were making bags!"  I said I was doing a paper and she told me "YOU NEED TO MAKE ANNA A BAG!"  Anna is her BFF at school.  So I said I would be happy to make Anna a bag when I had a minute, but it turns out that wasn't good enough.  So it was 8AM, and we leave for school at 8:40.  But I acquiesced, mostly because I wanted nothing to do with my paper at that point.  Leah picked Anna's fabric and handles and I whipped up the bag while Leah went about her business.  I told her it was done and asked her if she was going to give it to Anna, and she said, "No, it's for Christmas".  Grrr.

So anyway, then I got into a debate with some friends on Facebook.  They were convinced that this could not be easy.  That I had magical bag making hands.  That I knew how to sew.  That I was holding out on how hard it really was.  So my friend Melissa came over to see Leah in the Christmas pageant and me in the Christmas concert and she asked if I would show her the craft room, which I was happy to do.  The topic of the bags came up again and I told her I could have her making a bag in 15 minutes.  She accepted the challenge, and sure enough!  She made a bag!

I posted this on Facebook and people still refuse to accept that it can be that easy.  Oh well. I promise it is.  I have no superpowers.  It's just an easy project and great for beginners!  Come over and I'll prove it to you.  I'll call my infomercial, "You too can make a bag in 15 minutes and just FIVE EASY STEPS!"

Anyway, so the idea came to me with these bags piling up and Leah wanting to give Anna one for Christmas that I should give them away as Christmas gifts.  Leah and I have been very lucky to find the ladies at Hospice at this time in our lives and I thought it would be nice to make a goodie bag for each of them for the holidays.  Leah has a lovely counselor named Belinda, whom she and Dot dubbed "Miss Window" in an hilarious exchange during a car ride one day, While Leah was in with her every week for 4 or 5 months, I would sit in the lobby and chat with Miss Pat, the receptionist, who is an absolute ray of sunlight in this world.  And my own counselor, Gloria, is the kindest, most gentle and compassionate human being I have ever met in my life.  So I decided to make each of them a bag and fill them with good stuff.

Last year, I had made each of the ladies a lemon sugar scrub, which they all loved.  I still had a few mason jars left and decided this year to make cucumber mint sugar scrub.  And then I decided to sew something extra and I found a tutorial for therapy sacks at Creative Outlet Designs.  So it seemed fairly simple, a miniature version of making pillows.  I had some essential oils from last Christmas, when I made simmering jars as a gift, so I dug those out and got out some fabric I had from a non-sewing project for birthday gifts for a couple of Leah's friends who had birthdays in the past year.  The fabric was very cheerful and I used tangerine oils because according to the label, it is "cheering" as well and I figured after working with the dying and bereaved all day, you could probably use something cheerful.  I used wheat on the inside, although I will use rice in the future because the wheat I could find is kinda pricey!  And the sacks came out beautifully.

So, I packaged everything up and voila!

Printed off a little poem with the pillows and used scrapbook tags and stickers for the scrubs.  We had a party for Gloria the Friday before Christmas since it was her 73rd birthday, and as a birthday gift, I also gave her a big jar of homemade salsa.  Each of the ladies was very moved by their gift, but given what they have done for us in helping us move forward from what I consider my life's stopping point, there isn't enough nice I can do for any of them.

I also made a sack for myself--I love heating it up in the microwave and then sticking it by my feet in bed.  I keep warm all night like that.  Once Leah got wind of that, she wanted one as well, so I made her one too.  So a couple of friends asked for therapy pillows themselves when they saw the pictures on Facebook.  So I agreed to make one for a friend who is struggling with family issues right now, like I am, and one for my friend Elizabeth who I have mentioned several times on this blog already and who I also can't do enough for.  Then I had the brainflash that if these were so popular, I should put them to good use and so I offered that if anyone would make a donation to the Norrie Disease Association and then let me know, I would make them a therapy sack as well.  So far, only one person has done so, but it's a bit more than they had before and I do have enough fabric for 2 or 3 more pillows in the same material as the Hospice ladies, so if anyone wants one, just say the word, make a donation, and a sack is yours!  (I can also make them in more masculine material if you're a guy) I'm just about out of tangerine oil, but I have lots of lavender and I can get more tangerine or other scents if anyone wants something else.

Finally, I got brave and decided to put the machine to some practical use by hemming two sets of curtains.  Downstairs I put up a curtain to hide The Dumping Ground--Leah's pile o' toys.  I just used a couple of cheap bedsheets, since I didn't sew at that time, but they were far too long for what I needed, so I decided to hem those.  They came out fine.  Then I decided to hem the bathroom curtains.  I had found a couple of sheer panels after we re-did the bathroom, and they were perfect in that they matched the floor and also let some light into our upstairs hallway which looks like a cave, so I got them, but they were far too long.  Every time the windows are open, I'm afraid they'll blow into the toilet!  So I decided to hem those a shorter length and I was very pleased with how they came out as well. (Although you can't see the floor in this picture, it has giant polka dots on it that look like huge soap bubbles.  Hence, the dotted curtains are a perfect fit.)

For Christmas this year, my secret Santa sent me book of quilt patterns, so in 2014, I hope to complete my first quilt.  I have a number of friends who quilt and who assure me it's no big deal.  I hope that proves true.  I will be so proud of myself if I figure out quilting even a simple quilt.

So there you have it, my first sewing post.  I'm beyond proud of myself for learning this much so far and feel hopeful that I will find more new and easy things to become more experienced!

Getting Crafty

So it has long been my plan to turn Mike's former man cave into a crafting studio.  I love finding an outlet in creative endeavors, and last year my mom and I took a couple of classes at Michael's, learning how to make journals out of paper bags and learning the art of altered canvas.  I've also become obsessed with crafting on Pinterest, and found a lot of awesome projects.  In the last year, we (me, Mom, Leah) have made alcohol ink coasters, glitter ornaments, hydrangea paper wreaths, lamp makeovers, melted crayon art, sugar scrubs, paper flowers, family art, and more.  Unfortunately without a dedicated space, we worked at the dining room table, and then all our supplies went in plastic bags and got dumped in the man cave.  I did have Goodwill come and remove Mike's desks, I sold off his ham radio equipment, and got rid of his coffee station, but ultimately, although I knew I wanted to have a beautiful room for crafting and creating, I didn't know what to do.

Finally, about 8 months ago, I came across a pin that just spoke to me.  I can't figure out how to make my pins show up here, but this is an image from the blog that I pinned:

The pin was instructions for building the table, although frankly when you click on it, you are told no such page exists.  But basically, you buy some fairly inexpensive shelves from Walmart or the retailer of your choice, and then you buy 2 doors the same width and lay them on top.  Voila!  A crafting table with storage. (A Google search for Ivy Cottage Blog keeps bringing up other blogs ABOUT this particular table, but not the Ivy Cottage Blog itself, so maybe it doesn't exist any more?  Anyway, they own the rights to this picture, not me.)

I loved this idea and have clung to it for months.  I thought that teaming it with Expedit shelving from Ikea would work out great, and I've been on the hunt on Craig's List for Expedit shelves for months.  Until that time, bags and boxes of "stuff" have been piling up till I look like a hoarder.  Seriously.  And then, I got lucky!

I saw an ad for one shelf on Craig's List, but the lady actually had 2 to sell--one was a 4x4 model, the other a 5x5 model.  She wanted $190 for both of them, so I was bold, emailed her and asked her if she'd take $175, and she agreed (I think retail it would have cost nearly $400, so I got a great bargain!).  I got 3 of my friends (Jeff, Greg, and Chris), two of whom have trucks, to come with me and pick the suckers up, and in no time, we had shelves.  I already had a 2x4 model of Expedits down there for Leah's craft supplies, so the guys hauled the shelving in and they fit into the room just beautifully.  My sister was here the same weekend, and she stayed and helped me get things onto shelves in basically the order I thought they should go in, and I was just thrilled.  I could finally walk to a shelf and find paper without having to look through 3 or 4 boxes, only to find what I wanted crumpled at the bottom of a plastic bag.  There is so much room for storage, I've been able to collect crafting odds and ends from all over the house and finally put them where they belonged.  It was a bit of a heart wrenching project because I did have a few boxes of Mike's stuff in there that needed to be gone through, and which I did go through, got down to one box, and stored on the shelves.  There may have been a few tears involved in that situation.  But also, it was quite shocking the extent to which I had bought and re-bought and bought again supplies that I thought I didn't have simply because I couldn't find them in the mess. For instance, I would say conservatively I have $100 in alcohol inks. 

When everything was shelved, I took a night and grabbed the memory scrapbook that we had out at Mike's memorial.  Everyone who came left beautiful messages, and there were a LOT of pages left over.  So I went into my closet and got down the box of sympathy cards and glued those into the book, as well as all of Mike's awards that used to be framed and hanging on the wall.  The book is hugely thick now, and of course, after I ran out of pages, I found even more cards while cleaning, but I'll figure out what to do with those in time.  It was extremely moving to go through everything and read all the lovely messages of love and offers of help.  I cried a whole lot, but I feel so good knowing that all of those things are safe and preserved.

So then it was table time.  My dad started asking me at Thanksgiving what I wanted for Christmas so I decided to ask him for the doors for the table.  I knew the table would be perfect and once I built it, I would be ready for business.  He bought the doors, although to be honest, the entire process with building the table turned into quite an odyssey.  I bought myself the shelves and called on my friend Andy to come and build them, because he likes doing that kind of thing for some crazy reason.  As soon as we built the first shelf, I knew that it was A) too tall and B) the doors were too narrow.  So we returned the doors and the shelves, went to two more stores to buy new shelves and new doors and then built the table.  Andy mocked my hammering technique.  But given the hell I put him through to make the table, I let it pass. :0D

So, here is the big reveal...

The small shelf to the right is Leah's shelf--she knows that she can go in any time and use anything on her shelf without having to ask permission.  I am standing in the doorway of the room and immediately to my left is the other set of shelves--the 4x4 shelves.  I just couldn't get everything into the picture.  Eventually I will cover the doors in chalkboard paint, and in February I'll be hosting a little painting party to get rid of the blood red walls.  But otherwise, the only thing I'd like to do is change the flooring, and really that is going to have to wait quite a while.

What does the other citizen of the house think?

 

She is absolutely in love with the room.  Nearly every day she announces it's project time and we go in and she works on her own projects.  She's very creative--she turned 3 toilet paper tubes into rockets and we have enjoyed many games of catch with them.  She has made all kinds of paper and glue and glitter projects, she enjoys making ornaments with beads, painting, really anything she can think of. And she loves when we make projects together.  I love being in there as well.  When Mike was alive, I had a small table to one side of the man cave where I did scrapbooking.  He always told me, "Susan, I love it when you work in here, it makes me feel so close to you."  So being in "his" office really brings me a great deal of comfort.  And I can tell you that this weekend when I had a PILE of Christmas presents to wrap, that table came in SO handy! I also used the table to spread out and address our Christmas cards, so that was pretty great too!

So now that I can find things, Leah and I have been crafting together and I've been crafting alone.  I thought I'd share a few of our creations.  All of the inspiration for these projects has come from Pinterest, but generally speaking, I don't read directions from my pins.  I look at them, deconstruct them in my own mind, figure out how to put them together, and then I make them myself.  Also, since I can't figure out how to embed pins, I'll add a link to the original websites when possible.

My crafting rules are simple:  

1. Can't involve power tools other than a hot glue gun
2. Must be fairly simple and straightforward to understand
3. Can't involve much math--I start reading measurements and I get so perplexed my head hurts and I give up.  SIMPLE!
4. Paper is my favorite medium, so extra points if I get to use paper somehow.
5. A good mix of kid-friendly and not necessarily kid-friendly.  I want to feel like I'm doing stuff as a grown up, not only catering to my daughter, but I also want to be able to do things with her on occasion.

Leslie Ashe's Rolled Paper Tree

Ok, so while Leah was working on her rockets as pictured above, I decided to get out an old project I'd started working on last year with my mom.  I had tried to explain to her what we were doing, but it was pretty obvious she wasn't into it and when Mom isn't into it, there's honestly no point in continuing.  I wanted to make a rolled paper Christmas tree (Note: this link is to Leslie Ashe, who apparently was the mind behind this project, but her website said it doesn't exist any more.  So I can't link directly to the post).  I put one roll on the bottom of the canvas and that was it.  Mom just wasn't into it and it was palpable how much she wanted to do something else.  So I put the canvas away with one stupid roll of scrapbook paper attached to it, and it sat in The Pile for a year.

Knowing that Leah was going to be occupied for a while, I thought it would be a good time to get out the canvas and try to finish it.

Leah's and my rolled paper tree

It was a very simple project.  The hardest part is probably keeping the rolls a uniform size, and about halfway through, I discovered the secret is rolling it around a hot glue stick.  The other challenge is holding it in a roll and figuring out how to glue it.  And then gluing it to the canvas.  I started out with hot glue, but of course it's stringy and I burned myself a couple of times, so I switched to Aileen's Quick Dry Tacky Glue, which I highly recommend.  When I was done, Leah wasn't entirely satisfied with just the blank canvas behind the tree.  I had wanted to add a background paper, maybe a dark color or stars or something, but couldn't find anything I loved, so we decided to add a star on top, a Santa, and a reindeer, as well as some presents, a top border, and the words Merry Christmas!  It gives my tree a more informal feel, but I love it and I'm very pleased with how it came out.My tree is a bit wider and a bit more stereotypically progressive (I cut my paper down by 1/2 an inch each time).  And obviously it's a little bit tippy, but I love it!  So I called that one a great success.

Shelterness Cupcake Wrapper Wreath

Then at some point, Leah and I were in there and she announced that we should do a project together.  She calls all our craft designs "projects".  I looked at the craft supplies I had on the shelves, and I spied a foam wreath form and a package of cupcake wrappers and I remembered seeing a wreath made out of cupcake wrappers online "somewhere".  I can't locate the pin on my boards, so maybe I never pinned it, but I thought it was really pretty.  I did a quick search tonight of cupcake wrapper wreaths, and when you pack them together really tightly, they really look special, but I had one package of 75 that were left over from the cupcake contest at the fair this summer, and I decided we could use those for our wreath.  Anyway, to the left is the picture I remember seeing, and it comes from Shelterness, which also owns the rights to the picture.

This was a great project for kids because given the way that we put our wreath together, Leah was able to fold the papers into quarters, and she was able to use straight pins to attach the papers to the wreath form.  The repetitiveness of it eventually bored her and she moved on to other things, but it was nearly done by then.  The only thing I would probably do differently is to attach the papers with glue instead of pins just because it would be much cheaper that way.  Still, for us it was a great way for Leah to participate since I don't let her use the hot glue gun yet.  She loved the way the colors turned out, she loved pinning, she didn't love folding so much, although I did give her a bone folder and she thought it was pretty fancy to have a tool to fold with.  So that was cool  Anyway, our wreath is more multi-purpose than the one pictured above, but would be great for a birthday party, kid's room, Cinqo de Mayo celebration, or just anywhere you want a bright, sunny decoration.   Also, clearly we folded ours, which gave it a much different look than the one above, which probably had the wrappers glued straight on and then arranged around each other.  But there are tons of different possibilities.  After completing this, Leah went nuts in the cupcake wrapper department at Wegman's and we came home with mini wrappers, which I think will be really lovely, and also with red and white wrappers for Christmas.  I have my doubts that they will get done, but you never know.

From ArtCraftIdeas.net

The final project I'll mention for this entry was snow globe ornaments.  I pinned this one just last week, as I was thinking I would be babysitting Leah's little friend Anna on Friday, but the girls instead had school, so I didn't need to entertain two four year olds.  I was honestly a little disappointed, but Leah and I made the ornaments today instead. 

Anyway, the original pin was entitled "Easy Christmas Craft Ideas for Kids" and showed the four ornaments to the left.  The one with the plastic cup caught my eye, and I thought it was such a neat idea!  I didn't read the directions (of course!), but I knew I had some clear plastic cups from Mike's 1 year memorial in July, and I figured all we'd need to do would be to glue some figurines down to a paper plate, add fake snow, put on a hanger of some sort, hot glue the cup over the base, and that would be that.

The hardest part was finding small embellishments to put in the ornaments.  Hobby Lobby had very little in the way of miniature figurines for these guys.  Finally in their ornament collections, I found ornaments called "My Very Own Tree" or something of that nature, which are small ornaments you can give children who want to decorate Christmas trees of their own.  (NB:  That'll be the day.  I've decided this year and hereafter, Leah is in charge of the family Christmas tree.  If she wants to go buy all purple ornaments, so be it.  If she wants a 2 foot tree, so be it.  We're not having multiple trees per family member.)

Our sweet little ornaments

Anyway, these little ornaments looked to be the right size for what we'd need, and I found a larger box of clay ornaments of Santa, snowmen, penguins, etc. and decided to use those on the inside.  My instructions above are pretty much spot on--I traced the cup onto the plate so Leah would know what area she had to work with.  She got to choose which main figure she wanted and several smaller pieces go be glued on around him (she chose Santa).  I manned the hot glue gun, but I did let her independently place the ornaments on her circle, and she was very respectful of the fact that the glue was HOT.  She also helped me build my ornament--I chose a penguin.  It made me think of my niece, Dot, who recently spent the night and LOVED watching the penguins in the Claymation Christmas special. 

To put the ribbon through the top, I cut holes with an exacto knife, and then used a very large needle to thread the ribbon in and out.  Once the ribbon was in, we turned the cups upside down and put a little bit of fake snow in each cup.  I put hot glue around the rim of the cup, and then Leah flipped the figurine papers upside down onto the cups.  Then we turned them back over, cut off the excess paper plate and there we had ornaments!  It was so fun to do this and I think they look so great.  I hope she'll want to do it again, but she was more or less done at one, so I might need to recruit some other children to do it with us.

So I would really like to get out my sewing machine, which I got a year ago and is still in the box.  I have all the stuff I need to make some sweet little buckwheat pillows and I'd like to give them to the Hospice grief counselors who have worked with me and Leah this year. 

I'm glad all of our projects are turning out our way and not exact replicas of the things I've seen on Pinterest.  I'm grateful to Pinterest users for all the ideas I've gotten this year--it's been so fun to rediscover my inner crafter.  When I'm that girl, I'm transported from my worries for a while, and that is absolutely invaluable!  I'll post other projects in the future :)  Generally speaking, I am not getting terribly attached to anything we've made so far.  Mom, Judy, and I have discussed doing craft fairs and that is a definite possibility in the future.  We have a lot of ideas, now we just need to find the time!