Sewing & Knitting

Do you know how to sew?  Or knit?  I was taught in middle school how to sew using a sewing machine (and I'm sure my grandma had shown me before then) but completely forgot how to.  I taught myself how to knit a couple summers ago after watching tutorial videos online, but frustrated myself by using too thin of yarn and needles so I didn't get too far with my first scarf.  Recently the Jo-Ann's in my area moved locations and re-opened with a HUGE store!  My mom and I went to their grand opening and they were offering 1/2 off on their classes.  I have been wanting to learn how to sew and an easier way to knit for a long time, so I was excited to sign up for both classes (only $15 each). 

My knitting class was on Tuesday afternoon.  I was really looking forward to it because I got to take the afternoon off of work (SCORE!). I was provided with plastic knitting needles, a how-to booklet and a skein of really ugly puke green yarn.  The teacher was an employee at Jo-Ann's.  Right away she taught us how to "cast on" (put the yarn on the needle and complete the first row) and do a basic stitch.  It was just as I remembered and came back to me pretty quickly.  She also taught us a different stitch that was more complicated.  After a while she had us alternate stitches and at that point I got a terrible headache. Bummer.  I couldn't concentrate very much after that, and my fingers started hurting because I knit extremely tightly and that makes everything more difficult.  Before I left she taught us to "cast off" (close off the finished end).  I ended up leaving about 30 minutes early because my head was getting to be too much and my leg was obnoxiously shaky.  I should also mention that I forgot to eat lunch before class, so I was very hungry.  I'm sure that contributed to my headache/leg shakes.

Before I left Jo-Ann's I bought three sets of knitting needles.  Really big ones!! And some thick yarn.  From my experience, with bigger needles, and thicker yarn it is much easier on your hands and goes much faster.

My sewing class was Wednesday night.  It was a basic sewing class focusing on setting up the sewing machine and making basic stitches.  I have two sewing machines at home.  One is an antique Singer sewing machine that I think is missing the foot pedal, and I'm not sure if it works.  I got it at Stuff Etc. for $15.  The other one is a Brothers sewing machine from Walmart with 14 different stitch styles.  Will bought me the floor model so it was only $30!!  The sewing machine I used in my class was a Singer with 70 or so different stitch options!  It was so much fun!  It had a lot of patterned stitches and I could tell that the sewing machine was really sophisticated (i.e. expensive) because of how easily it could make the patterns. My favorite was a Greek fret pattern and one that looked like a curvy line with little loops.  I think that machine cost around $300.. Maybe some day I will be a good enough sewer and have enough money to get it.

I was really happy with my sewing class!  One of my classmates brought in an old Singer similar to mine, so I was able to look at how she was doing things to get a better understanding of mine (although I still haven't tried it).

Okay this post is getting really long and boring, but I just wanted to explain that I just learned these skills and I am really happy and excited that I finally know enough about something to make it a hobby.  I have a few sewing patterns I'm excited to try and I want to experiment with knitting as well...

Which brings me to the REAL point of this post... I made something!

Let's play "Find Dexter" ;)

Wednesday night I started working on a scarf.  I made it 10 rows wide and used all of my skein of yarn.  I actually ran out of yarn at the end, so I wasn't able to finish it as nicely as I would have liked. It took me around 3 hours to make.

Yesterday I decided that I wanted to add some pretty flowers to the end of my scarf.  I figured I could use my sewing knowledge as well on this project. :)  I Googled "Fabric Flowers" and found this tutorial http://iammommahearmeroar.blogspot.com/2010/09/autumn-bloom-belt.html.  I did not make the leaves or the belt, just the flowers.  It was really simple! All it took was some felt, scissors and a hot glue gun.

Please excuse the poor-quality photo!

I made one big flower and two small ones.  The big one used two 8.5" x 1.5" pieces of felt. The smaller ones used only one piece of 8.5" x 1.5". 

The colors I used are dark purple, black and light grey.  I thought they complimented the teal nicely.  To get the flowers on to my scarf I sewed on three small felt circles, approximately the size of the base of the flower, where I wanted them.  Then hot glued the bases of the flowers onto the felt.  I'm not sure how long this glue bond will last.. Hopefully forever!

I'm really happy with the way it turned out!  There are always things I can improve on, but it was a great learning experience. :)

You can click any of the photos for a larger version! Sorry they are so tiny.

Do you sew or knit? Do you think hobbies like that are interesting?