Making Sewing a Thing in 2018

One of my intentions for the new year was intentional creativity.  That means, not just creating when I've found the odd minute, or am rewarding myself with time at a craft table.  It means making creativity part of my life.  Does it mean I craft every day?  Every week?  Or when I've found myself with nothing to do?  

Quite the contrary.  So far, I've found myself sitting, with nothing pressing to do, and thinking I should go do something crafty and I end up just sitting and reading, scrolling through my phone or just blanking out in front of the TV.  I'm perfectly aware that this is time I could create.  I think part of my challenge is acknowledging the time (or how much of it I actually have)  Probably, like most women/people, I'm good at thinking I have no time for this or that, when we actually do.  So recognizing down time, is big, regardless of whether I actually do anything.  

Another part of being intentional is it's not all about scrapbooking.  It's trying something new, or returning to something I used to do.  Sewing is both something new, and something I used to do.  Sort of.  Kinda.  I know the basics of sewing.  I can create from a simple pattern - I've made several Halloween costumes over the years.  I can find my way around a machine and produce something trick-or-treat worthy (I won't mention how I went to do the below project and couldn't remember how to turn on my new machine.)  The new is my machine - which I have now admitted to myself, intimidates the crap out of me.  New is also trying something new - enter the Sweetwater Project Kits.

I have several kits waiting, some with more complicated (for me) projects than others.  I decided to pick something super simple and found it, a towel.  Yes, I seem to be on a towel kick - I can't explain it.  This one seemed simple enough - attach a little ric rac and then a strip of fabric from the stack included.

The instructions were simple enough to follow.  One afternoon I pulled out my cutting mat and measured out the strip, pressed it accordingly and cut my ric rac.  Then it sat, for about a week or so.

Can I just take a side street here and show you this.  It's from the machine manual - which I needed to refer to to re-thread my machine.  Note the illustration on using the foot pedal.  It's not so much that someone needs not only words, but a graphic to operate the foot pedal (I almost needed it to find the power switch) but it's the fact that the foot is in a slipper.  With a sock!

Okay, so back at it.  Superbowl Sunday I decided was the day to finish the towel.  So with things to do, I decided to take a bit and go downstairs and finish this thing up.  I had trimmed my ric rac only to find the towel material had a lot of stretch.  I should have probably sewn the ric rac down and then cut and turned under the ends.  I also should have sewn it on upside down, because I'd have seen the towel edge.  As it was I had to pull out the basting because only about a third of it hit the towel.

I also should have checked the width of the fabric strip against the stretchy towel base.  I had pressed according to direction, but with the give in the towel I pressed it just a bit short, cut it right though.  I pulled out an extra 1/4" (no, I didn't re-press it, just went for it) and sewed.

I think it came out rather well.  My machine cooperated.  I kept a pretty straight line.  It was pretty thick going over the edges where the ric rac was turned.  Looking back I could have basted the ric rac, not turned the edges, sewn on the fabric strip and, then, turned the ric rac under.

Oh, well.  Live and learn and move on to the next sewing project a little wiser, with a little forethought before the needle.

Happy Thursday,

Lori