Monday, October 13, 2008

Another Halloween teaser and fun with sewing

I broke out ye olde sewinge machine yesterday morning. After approximately 1 1/2 hours wrestling with it, I sewed the first stitch on Malia's Halloween costume. I'm apparently an idiot because it took me that long to troubleshoot and discover that not only had I not put the bobbin in correctly, but I'd strung it incorrectly. It's been about 6 years since I last sat down and sewed something so apparently in those years, I'd forgotten the basics of running my machine. I took the thing apart trying to figure out what was jamming things up before I noticed that it wasn't the bobbin jamming that was the problem.

After about ten minutes of sewing I realized that the 3rd step in the process was to sew the tail and stuff it with poly fill. I apparently forgot to purchase that fill in one of my many trips to the fabric stores over the last couple of weeks. So, up we went in the snow to JoAnn's to pick up some poly fill. While I was there I grabbed a scissor sharpener too because I've been meaning to. Mom, I'm bringing it with me next time I come up and sharpening yours.

I sat back down and 5 1/2 hours later I'm about 90% done with her costume. I still have to finish up the ears and attach them, put on the velcro for the front closure and finish up sewing the elastic into the mitten and boot parts. I also apparently have to do some quick fixing and tack on a few inches to the bottom hem because I'm somehow off by like 2 inches. I don't know how. I measured it three times and even measured it while Malia was wearing it. Yay, for extra material. Hopefully it's not too noticeable.

I did realize however that this was the easy of the two costumes and it's going to end up being around 9 hours total with cutting out and sewing. I'm probably looking at 15 or so for my costume. Luckily I'm not working on Friday so maybe I'll get up a teaser on it for the weekend. I also realized that while I love my counter height kitchen table with it's stool chairs, I'm too short to comfortably sit and sew and still reach the pedal. I had to sit on the edge of the seat to reach the floor to work the pedal. I may have to invest in a card table if I decide to continue sewing things. I probably will because the cutting out part aside, I rather enjoyed putting the costume together. I may do some real clothes for her now. It was surprisingly relaxing.

Enjoy the pic I took last night. Sorry it's so blurry.

1 comment:

Britt said...

Wow! I'm impressed, it looks great. Every time I use my sewing machine, and I'm not exaggerating, I have to read the instructions to remind me how to put the bobbin in and thread it correctly.