Sew Fun

Yesterday was my sister's birthday. When her work day was over, I treated her to a late lunch at Longhorn. She rarely goes out without one of her three kids along unless she's going to work so we extended the outing with a little post-lunch shopping. I bought a sewing machine and an accessory kit with 165 pieces. I had researched sewing machines a while back and one of the top candidates was on sale at Target so I sent T a text message to clear the purchase with him before checking out. I like to check-in when I'm spending more than $50 on one item.

The Princess Trio is thrilled, particularly M. She's really developed an interest in needlework over the past year. I find scraps of cloth sewn together in the dirty laundry at least once every week. Her hand sewing has improved with practice; she's probably better than me by now. It took longer to set the machine up and get it ready to go than I expected and M was in bed by the time it was working correctly. I'm not ashamed to admit that T was ultimately the person who got everything set just right so the machine would work.

This morning before school, M did a "practice piece" on the sewing machine. She didn't want to wait until after school and homework. They missed the bus so T took them to school. He told me M talked about the sewing machine and what she's going to learn to make the whole way to school. Doll clothes. Blankets. Purses. Skirts. She has big plans.

After school, I let each daughter wind a bobbin. I talked them through the process as a first step to learning more about the machine. After we finished doing that, A did her first practice piece. S opted out of the actual sewing for now but she thinks winding the bobbins is a lot of fun. M and A took turns practicing for a while this evening. I think they tried out all of the different stitches. They cut large squares from clothes that M had claimed for scrap cloth and sewed the squares together. I gave them safety instructions and then left them to experiment while I did things in the next room. When I heard them talking about why it wasn't working correctly, I waited for them to ask for my input. They didn't need it. A pointed out that M hadn't lowered the presser foot and asked if that could be the problem. They cleared away the mess, got everything ready and tried again with the presser foot lowered. It worked so they now believe that's an important step to take before beginning.