Hi! Today I’ll just jump straight into the topic: wanna know what my free time looks like recently? 🙂 Like this picture!
Yep, I’m all in the sewing activities – and I love it! Since I finally got my new toy – the sewing machine – I’m immersed into everything that’s thread, fabric, seems, cutting, measuring and sewing. Though I’m not doing much of actual sewing yet, because I decided that I’d like to learn how to sew properly. So – being a definite Type A and all in all a person in-love with books – I started from reading 😀 My bookshelf is now filled with books titled “Sewing Machine Basics”, “The Sewing Machine Classroom” and “Dressmaker’s Guide” that the Helsinki library kindly provided (they have such wonderful libraries and the whole library system here in Finland!!! I can’t even express how happy I am about that!). Apparently, there are so many things I didn’t even realise I didn’t know! 😀 Like different threads for different projects and what needle and stitch length and width to choose for what fabric, not to mention the different foots for a sewing machine and thread tension and… Well, you get the idea 🙂
It’s really not that I’m starting from a complete scratch – in my teenage years I even made a few clothes (like skirts and a blouse with straps and even a dress) and I actually wore them (so they weren’t really bad 🙂 ). But then I was sewing just from my own understanding and – really – just relying on luck: I made mistakes and I didn’t care much that the final garment didn’t look professional. But I made it! That was the most important.
Now the fact of making something myself is as important, but I’m older and I don’t really want to wear something that screams from a kilometer away: “Look, I made it myself! So what if it doesn’t look like much!” That’s why all the books and learning 🙂
But I’m not only reading, mind you, and I’m not writing this time to share with you the titles of my “study books”, but, rather, my first project 🙂 It’s extremelysimple, but it fulfills the main objectives for this moment: it let me try out my machine, it was simple enough to make in a very short time (time is something I would be glad to buy in bulk these days, but, I guess, most of us feel the same way, right?) and it brought a bit of color and spring into our home (about time!). So, here it is: just the pillowcases for our living room sofa pillows 😀
…and “after”
Sofa “before”…
Now, I would not necessarily say that the new pillow cases generally look better on our sofa, but they do look better as an accent of spring. Right? What do you think?
Of course, now there is a whole row of projects already lined in my mind 🙂 And I will, of course, share them all with you in due time. But today I saved you a couple of pretty pretty pictures for the final – my birthday gift from a dear friend here in Helsinki.
Look at this bag! Can you imagine the patience that goes into making something like this? To sew all those “flower-buttons” on, and the embroidery and everything… Oh my… This woman is a real crafter 🙂
And that’s it for my colorful post today. See you next time!
IeVa Janus 