Meet my Mentor!

My mentor is Mrs. Courtney Rushing, the fashion and merchandising teacher here at SMHS. Although I did not quite plan to have her as my mentor, having her would prove to be more beneficial than my other choice, for a multitude of reasons.

(My wonderful mentor :) )

First, Mrs. Rushing is my third period teacher (and perhaps one of my favorite teachers this year), and has been teaching me how to sew. Her patience is endless. I don't think I have enough fingers to count the number of times I've messed up. While learning how to sew, I've backed up the bobbin, dulled needles, broken thread, somehow made the machine rattle... let's just say it hasn't been too great.

But Mrs. Rushing encourages me to keep trying, and so I do. She's the reason why I think that I miiiiiiight have a shot at this. I just need to stop screwing up and self-doubting and just get to work!

She specializes in marketing and sales, and part of her fashion class is creating a new product to market to the general public. We learn how to choose or create patterns, choose fabric that complements, and create a finished product via sewing machine. She has made quilts before, and therefore has experience in that, and has also been sewing for over twenty years - longer than I've even been alive. She's a wealth of information for me, seeing how naive and clueless I am with this entire sewing endeavor.

(Mrs. Rushing with one of her t-shirt quilts.)

We've agreed to meet during lunch three or so times a week, but also during third period everyday. Because we tend to have a lot of free time in class, there's plenty of opportunities to work on quilting and sewing. Our first objective is to create a small lap quilt (I've spent around $50 on the supplies for the small quilt) - my current project. I think it's going to be a lot of fun and I'm really excited.

In all, we thought that the supplies shouldn't cost more than $100 (because I can borrow a sewing machine and rotary cutter and what not). The plan is for me to finish the mini quilt by next Tuesday or so (4/19) so I can do a bigger quilt and be done by the end of the quarter, when the senior project is due. My fingers are crossed that nothing goes too badly.