This was my experience until I found YCMT (you can make this.com)...I purchased one of their pdf downloads that had not only instructions, but pictures, real pictures, lots and lots of pictures. It was beautiful and after a late night cutting about 400 squares with scissors I had something somewhat resembling a patchwork twirl skirt. It was amazing. I was hooked. I sewed and sewed until one day Andrew stated that I could now let Audrey out of the house wearing something I constructed it was a grand day. I was so proud I hung the dress up for decoration in their playroom.
1 year old Audrey wearing my first "acceptable" dress
Somewhere during that time my mother in law felt impressed to give me an amazing sewing machine (which remained in storage mostly for over a year because I was intimidated by it) After we moved to Hawaii, we had a fourth bedroom so I set up a sewing room, and worked until the wee hours of the morning, only stopping to nurse my newborn Benjamin. I sewed away testing patterns and fabrics. After a little scare with my infant, I decided to pack up the sewing room, and focus on home and children again. I pulled it out here and there but it was defiantly not part of everyday life. Then one day recently I pulled out the sewing machine again to make some cloth diapers, and have not put it away since. My passion for sewing was revived, and my deep ambition to start a boutique finally came to fruition. It is in the early stages, but it is improving daily and so am I....and I am having so much fun in the process
Love it, Rachel! My grandma taught me to sew when I was a kid. She only lived around the corner, so I would ride my bike to her house, and we'd go get a pattern and make a t-shirt or something. You're probably too young to remember the "boat-neckline."
ReplyDeleteMy grandma used to roller skate and bike ride, too, but that was a long time ago! ;~) She's traveled the world (or at least everywhere she wanted to go...) after my grandpa died when I was only two. When she was 78 or so she told me that when she was 75 she went parasailing. I want to be my grandma when I grow up!
She's still around, but doesn't do much parasailing these days. I think she's 84, has Parkinson's, but still manages to live in a senior-apartment thingy. ...my mom said the other day, "unless I make her move into assisted living because she won't take her noon medication!" No egg timer in the world can convince that woman that it's time to take her pills.
Just thinking about my sewing machine always makes me think of my grandma, and the hours we spent when we were both much younger... and the tomato-shaped pin cushion.