Sewing 101

My first intro to sewing was in the 7th grade in Home Economics, I am now showing my age, as Home Economics is no longer a part of current educational curriculum, which personally I think is a shame! Girls took Home Ec and Boys took Wood Shop, do you remember those days?

Home Ec sewing projects were basic and simple, the 7th grade project was an adorable gigham hostess style apron, complete with a pocket and then we embroidered a simple X pattern on the pocket....the 8th grade project was a bean bag frog, which was a little more complicated.

Over the years I have dabbled in sewing, mostly straight stitches and lots of appliques. For complicated projects like bedding, window treatments, cushions, slipcovers etc, the Good Lord has blessed me with friends and family( My mother-in-law Pat, Aunt Debbie, Kathy V., Kathy H and Kim B.) that have incredible sewing skills, who I could trade or barter with to make the complicated things for me.

I had some adorable rooster valances that were given to me ,as I always try and reuse things or pass them on to someone who can use them...here is what they look like

To make a long story short, someone spotted them in my craft room folded flat and sitting in a pile of fabric and told me they knew someone who could use them. So I of course agreed if they wanted them they were theirs, I did this before I knew there were three windows and any of the window sizes, big mistake!

After my commitment I learned only one of the three valances that were complete and ready to be added to a board, was the correct size and that the other two would need to be added to, altered etc. The challenge was that the rooster fabric is a discontinued fabric, the good news is that the black check fabric in the valance is still available and I thought no problem we will simply use the rooster panels as the gussets and the check as the large front panels, no problem! And since two windows shared one wall the other window was on a wall by itself, it would be ok if the valances were different as long as they incorporated the same fabrics.

Boy was I wrong, the rooster fabric is like a tapestry fabric and is very stiff and not overly flexible, so there was no way it was going to cooperate and lay flat to allow me to create a gusset, in addition, the gusset in the valance is so small you couldn't even tell it was the same rooster fabric on the completed valance.

What to do, what to do....as I tweaked and tweaked, I came up with two options, of course, I was leaning towards one more heavily, but since they weren't for me, I sought the opinion of my dear husband, who at times has a great eye (it's great when he agrees with me!) he actually picked the one I was leaning towards without swaying him, which was all the reassurance I needed.

So, the sewing began....which shouldn't have been a problem except my basic Singer is 15 years old, I have never had it serviced, oiled, etc and the tension is majorly goofed up and it will no longer wind bobbins, so I get to wind them by hand, talk about a pain!

I would get in a rhythm and the thread would break from the goofed up tension or the bobbin thread would run out. It was a true test of patience.

After about 4 hours of assembling, sewing, riping out seams and resewing, here is what the finished product looked like.

I actually amazed myself....please all you great seamstresses out there don't look closely at my seams, I used clear thread to try and hide as many non straight stitches as possible.

I am taking an intermediate sewing class starting this Thursday to try and improve upon my limited skills and learn some new ones! Can't wait and I need to get my sewing machine to the repair shop!

I'll keep you posted on my future projects.

I would love to hear your comments, don't be afraid to post a comment, it's really easy....let me know if you took Home Economics and what you remember about it, both good and bad!