Going back to my crafty roots

The very first crafting obsession I ever had was sewing.  I learned how to sew by hand in Sunday school, back when I was 8 years old, and I turned out to be pretty good at it.  And on top of that, I really enjoyed it.  Really, really enjoyed it.  So much so that I was shortly begging my dad to take me to the nearest Jo-Ann Fabrics, two towns over.  And when he did take me, it was like walking into craft heaven.

So much fabric!

And thus, my crafting addiction was born, with scraps of fake fur fabric from the remnants bin, a couple of sewing needles, and some thread.  I made a rather homely looking bear, and then another homely looking animal, and then kept on sewing until my skills were passably good.  I even made a tiny doll quilt with the help of one of my neighbors!  I went on to make bigger and better things – clothing for dolls, clothing for myself, Halloween costumes, another quilt, and more stuffed animals.

The last sewing project I embarked on, until very recently, was my giant Toothless plush that I made back in 2012.  You’ve all seen pictures of him.  I’ve posted about him a bazillion times. And aside from sewing on the odd button on a shirt, or patching up the antique quilt I picked up in the Adirondacks years ago, I haven’t really sewn anything since.  Crocheting and cross-stitching and many other crafts got in the way, unfortunately, and my poor old sewing machine languished at the bottom of closets or in the garage for a while, waiting for me to pick it back up again.

My sewing machine – happy to be used again.

And thanks to the need for curtains, combined with a gift card for Jo-Ann Fabrics from my little sister-in-law, I broke out my trusty Brother sewing machine and picked up the fine art of stitching again.  I’m not amazing with a machine yet – I can do straight lines, and I know the basics of how to operate my sewing machine, but all the fancy options this guy has are kind of intimidating.  Curtains don’t need fancy stitching, though.

The finished product!

Aaaaand I made myself some curtains!  They’re pretty, and perfect for my craft room.  It feels more lived-in in here, far cozier than it used to.

During the process of making those curtains, I realized how much I missed sewing.  As I said, it’d been years since I’d picked it up, and I had fun doing it, so I was looking for other sewing projects to do – and one fell into my lap during a trip to, you guessed it, Jo-Ann’s.  My friend Kasi and I had headed over there so Kasi could get some thread and we could drool over yarn, and we almost walked out with little stacks of their Sweet Roll yarn, when we wandered over to the quilting section and found fabric we each fell in love with.  Neither of us had done any sewing projects in a while, and Kasi found so many beautiful collections of bright fabric she wanted to make a quilt from.  Me, I found fabric with scooters on it.  SCOOTERS.  I took it as a sign, gathered up both bundles that had the scooter fabric in it as well as some other pre-cut fabric, and set out to make a scooter quilt.

Scooter quilt in progress!

I’m using a Jelly Roll strip bundle in various black patterns, as well as a bundle of quilt fabric with roses, scooters, and the Eiffel Tower, oddly enough (I thought scooters were big in Italy, not France), and I’m doing a combination of strips and squares.  This is what I’ve got so far – and I’ll post updates as I go along.  The scooter quilt, as I’m calling it, is going to be mostly hand sewn – I might get lazy and do the actual quilting on the machine, but we’ll see.  So far, I’m still piecing things together.  I’m glad I got back into sewing, though – it’s something different to occupy my hands with, and it’s also something I’ve missed doing.