Saturday, September 20, 2008

Sewing 101

After practicing threading the sewing machine over and over, I think I've finally got the hang of it. Excited that I managed to get past that step without any war wounds, I forged forward onto practicing straight stitching. I placed the fabric carefully under the pressure foot, lowered it, and gently pressed the foot pedal. All I heard was SNAP! The needle broke! Egad!

I removed the broken needle and headed to the fabric store with the broken needle to get a replacement. I had no idea what size the needle was, so I just handed it over to the sewing guy (who sighed audibly) and was given a variety pack.

After replacing the needle, I held my breath and tried again. Success! The sewing machine was behaving. I saw a so called easy pattern for a fleece hat. I managed to do the long seam, though its a bit crooked.



The next step was to turn the brim up. I guess I was supposed to use fleece that looked the same on both sides, instead of the wrong side/right side fleece I used. When I rolled up the brim, it was pretty obvious that the wrong side was showing. Easy enough to fix if I use the right fleece next time.

I do have a question for you sewers out there. After making the long seam of the hat, you can see the sewing lines that I made on the wrong side of the fleece when the brim is turned up. Is there any way to avoid this next time or will that always show on a turned up brim like this?





The hat is a little small too and since its super amateur, it now belongs to one of Piper's big headed dolls.

I promise (really this time) to have a crochet project on my next post. Its a neat one, if I do say so myself.

Sewing lesson #2 is today!

6 comments:

Bezzie said...

I've never seen fleece that's got a "wrong" side!!

I dunno about the seam not showing. I'm a sewing noob myself!!

Laura said...

That hat looks pretty good for a first project!

Don't you just hate rude employees at stores??

Caroline said...

Hi Christina! even though I haven't blogged in a while I still keep up with a! Answer to your sewing question, you just stop the seam where you are gooing to turn your brim up at and then flip it over and sew the seam from the other side of the fabric. That way you'll know when/where to always fold your brim up at. Make sense? Good luck!!!

Anonymous said...

Wow,,,, interesting fleece! You did great for a first time!

Anonymous said...

That's a great first project! When you get the hang of things, you'll be surprised at how easy it really is.

I see Caroline answered your question, so good luck with the next project! :-)

Lesalicious said...

I say it looks FAB. Great job. And you can't go wrong with fleece at all.:) Keep up the great work.