Novice Sewer---Tie T-shirt

Yesterday was my birthday. I am now 35. I decided to start a new hobby. So, what did I get for my birthday? A sewing machine. I am so excited.

It took me several hours to get the thing ready to sew. I watched several YouTube videos, and finally figured out how to get everything threaded.

I have been dying  to make T-shirts for the boys with ties on them. I have seen them all over Pinterest and Etsy, and wanted to try it for myself.

 

I bought a bunch of cheap T-shirts at Wal-Mart and some fabric swatches.

 

Here is my first attempt.

 

Not so bad, except I only had it sewn on the top (I had hemmed all the edges before hand). He loved it, but I was afraid that he would get pulled off.

So I decided to sew all the way around it.

Now remember this is my first sewing project in 20 years (my grandmother was a fantastic sewer, she worked for Singer for most of her career, and then retired to teach sewing at the community college). I had made things with her, but she was a huge help…in fact she probably did 99% of it.

In sewing around it, I sewed the front of the shirt to the back of the shirt. When I tried to fix it, this happened!

 

 

Ok…so try number 2! This time I didn’t hem the sides first, I hemmed and sewed it onto the T-shirt at the same time. I made the Tie too short for monkey, so this is Alligators.

 

   

Not too bad if I do say so myself.

My next project is going to be a tie for Monkey to wear to school on Valentine’s Day.

I am going to iron on some cool designs, and then sew it on…bet you can’t wait! 

All I want for Christmas…

So I have been thinking that I really want a sewing machine for Christmas. There are all these great blogs out there that have tutorials for some fantastic projects and I really want to try them out. However there is one small problem: I DON”T KNOW HOW TO SEW!

My grandmother worked for Singer. She was a career woman before anyone knew what a career woman was. I don’t know exactly what her job was, but she traveled all over the world for Singer. Needless to say, she was a fantastic sewer. Even after retiring from Singer, she worked at the local community college teaching sewing classes. She continued to teach pretty much up until she passed away. I had the luxury of going with her to her classes a few times, and we made a skirt. In some way, I think she would love to see me sew. And who knows, maybe the sewing gene has been passed onto me.

So when I go see Santa in a few weeks, I will be asking for a Sewing Machine. I am using up all of my self control to not buy one for myself and allow Santa to bring me one. Assuming I am on the nice list! (He-he-he)

To help me with my self-control, I thought it would be fun to post occasionally some of the projects I want to make once I have my sewing machine and actually figure it out.

Here is one of them:

This is a fold up car caddy from Homemade by Jill. It probably won’t be my first project, cause it looks a little hard, but my boys would definitely like it!

 

This is a dinosaur play-mat, from the folks at Serving Pink Lemonade. This is probably a little more my speed since the only real sewing is the edging. I am thinking I could make one for farm animals, as well as roads (there is a tutorial for the roads there too)

When I stumble upon more I will be sure to post!