Something new today

It's been a productive day. It doesn't hurt that it's a 3 day weekend and tomorrow (Monday) is off too. Often I have the feeling that the weekend ought to be one day longer. I don't know if you can relate to that? Anyways, this one was so I decided to use it for good.

I'm also inspired by my knitting group, who is have decided to pay more attention to unfinished projects this year. So what did I do?

First I put some patches on my kids trousers. It only took about 10 minutes, which makes me wonder why they sat patiently in my room for months and months waiting to be repaired! I even had patches and everything - and they were iron-on!



I'm really proud of myself for finally doing the patches, and it was liberating in a way to finish a task that was just sitting there in the corner of my craft/bedroom. But I didn't stop there. I finally pulled out my 'brand-new' sewing machine.



It's probably been about 9 months since I got it - sometimes last spring, and today I finally used it! I had another sewing machine before that I was trying to use. I say trying, because the tension was all wrong on it. It was probably fixable, but I ended up giving it away. Besides, I would have had to take it somewhere else, since there is no one in my small town that could have fixed it. So I get this brand new sewing machine (at a sale too!), and what do I do? NOTHING

Well, today I finally used it and I couldn't be happier. It's a simple machine, it's even called 'Singer Simple' and I got it at JoAnn's for $100 ($30 off), but it works so much better than my old sewing machine :) I wanted a simple sewing machine because I want to master the basics before I invest in a big, fancy machine (if I ever will). I know I will use straight and zig-zag stitch 99% of the time anyways. There might come a time where I will want a fancier sewing machine, who knows. It depends on how much I will be sewing and what I want to use it for. But for now all I want is as simple of a machine as possible.

Happy, happy, joy, joy (you get extra points for knowing where this reference is from)

The first thing that I sewed was fairly simple. A bib, actually two bibs. The front is a quilting fabric that looks like bandana (kúrekaklútur eða gamaldags snýtiklútur) and the back is a terry cloth (handklæðaefni-frotte).




The pattern was from One-Yard Wonders, a wonderful book with very diverse selection of patterns - all requiring no more than a yard of fabric (and maybe backing as well). I will be making more from this book for sure.



The sewing went well and I love how they turned out. I put another patch on the backside that says 'Crafted with love'. I don't know if the recipients will appreciate handmade things or not (one of them is my husband's sister-in-law - svilkona - and the other is my husband's cousin), but this way maybe they will at least realize that it is handmade and not bought. Not that I mind whether or not they appreciate it. Once a handmade gift is out of my hands, it's no longer mine and I don't worry about it. If people like it and appreciate that's great. But if they don't that's fine too. I make it sound like I don't think that the recipients will like the bibs, but I think that they will. I've just never given them anything handmade before. That's all.