Something Went (Almost) "Seamlessly"

Today, I sewed my first strip, To my delight, it was "sew" much easier than cutting... Well. Sort of. You see, I kind of forgot that I'm not that great at sewing.

(It's pretty much my height.)

But first, before sewing, I had to lay my pieces out today and sort them, which I did. Then, I grabbed my first stack, and sat down in front of the sewing machine that I am borrowing, the Brother 60-Stitch Computerized Sewing Machine, CS-6000i. Oof. That's a bit of a mouthful.

Immediately, I remembered that I'm really not that great at sewing. Hm. Well, I guess I can sort of fake my way through this, right? I knew I needed to have quarter inch seams, and Ms. Rushing told me to have the fronts/print side of the fabrics facing each other. Then, I was supposed to sew the edges together with a quarter inch seam. After a bit of fiddling, I realized that a quarter inch seam is when the thread is a quarter inch from the edge of the fabric. Who would have known?

(Walking myself through sewing another square)

When I first began sewing, I practiced on a scrap piece of fabric. I thought it would help if I pushed the fabric along, but well... it really didn't. The sewing machine jammed a bit (okay, so it jammed a lot), and produced what I called "sewing machine clouds." Basically, the machine bobbin got stuck because the fabric was moving too quickly, and tension was off or something like that. When Mrs. Rushing came over to take a look, she patted me on the back and told me not to push it along. And when I didn't try to force the fabric through, it was much much easier!

(Seam #1...doesn't it look good?)

Anyway, the sewing went very quickly once I knew what I was doing. It was really just guiding the fabric through the needle and keeping it straight. The first seam I did was wonderful. It was very nice and straight, and I thought, "Hm... maybe I am sort of good at this thing. I was super proud of myself, so I excitedly started seam #2.

Have you ever heard the phrase "pride goeth before a fall"?

(Seam #2)

Yeah, well. Here's seam #2. to the right. Unfortunately, it seems like my favorite fabric (the cream fabric with the little green leaves) always happens to be the one that I mess up on. But yeah. Because I wanted to get my seams done quickly, I didn't line up the fabric properly, and it just got worse the farther I went. So... I tried to go over the seam (see the video below) and messed up even farther. I had to use a seam ripper and resew the square. So I learned another maxim today...

Haste makes waste. Good thing Mrs. Rushing has plenty of thread!

Once I was able to sew the square correctly, I sewed the next square, more slowly this time. Then, I did the next, and the next, keeping the fabric squares rolled up neatly so they weren't just lying in a pile next to the sewing machine. And then, Before I knew it, I was done with my first strip!

The first strip was 7 squares, which I thought was a lot, but really wasn't all that bad. However, it had taken me almost half an hour to sew, mostly due to the fact that I spent fifteen minutes fixing the second and third squares.

(Warning: I was frustrated and the camera was right

next to my face... turn the volume down!)

However, when I finished the first strip, I realized that I needed to change my game plan. (Check out my next blog post for information on why...) I just spent the rest of class talking with my mentor and relaid out my squares, with the completed strip on the very top.

(Done laying out my squares!)