My first sewing project

I spent a portion of my rainy Saturday afternoon sewing covers for throw pillows. After hearing some encouragement following my run-in with a less than helpful salesperson, I went ahead and bought a refurbished Janome machine. I fell in love with her as soon as I took her out of the box. Then, I quickly realized that she's white with pinkish buttons and all the rest of my electronics are black and silver. I guess she'll fit in more once I upgrade my Dell to a Mac, but that's not going to happen anytime soon (darn!).

I used a few pieces of scrap fabric to mess around and try to get a feel for my machine's capabilities. I didn't want to be rude and put her to work once she got here, I had to give her a few days to get adjusted (and probably curse me for purchasing her, when I have no idea what I'm doing!). Then, I ran over to Joann's and bought a beginner's sewing kit and a few pieces of fabric (I'm limiting myself to the remnants section in order to keep costs down and my confidence up).

My first project was really, really, really easy; the covers were so easy that the final product looks great while the interior seams are not a pretty sight. It's all part of the learning curve or at least that's what I'm telling myself.

I spent less than $5 on fabric and scored the pillow inserts on sale (50% off!). While I haven't yet recouped the cost of the sewing machine, the incredible sense of pride I have with my pillows is well worth the high start-up cost associated with beginning a new hobby (and let's face it, the sewing machine was much less than a new camera- which is thrown for a loop with the new Canon Rebel T1i).

So here are my pillows.


Score! The pillows past the Jaximus test!

I'll admit, they aren't anything fancy to look at. I'm not going to lie, I'm not crazy about the fabric. When it was rolled up in the remnant section I couldn't see that it had that much pink in it. I think it was the pink buttons on my sewing machine, they wanted some company and now I have doubled the amount of pink things in my house (the hubs wears more pink than I do, but to be fair he looks much better in it than me).

The pattern I used can be found here. It is a really easy pattern- no buttons, no zippers, and no crazy stitching. My pillows are 16"x16", so I made the adjustment and went ahead with two 16"x11" pieces of fabric for the backing. I really like the idea of removable pillow covers, which means now I can switch up the look of the living room couch on a seasonal basis.

The hubs actually showed a great deal of interest in my new hobby. He was encouraging and even suggested that we move some things around in our office so that I could have more room on our desk for my sewing machine. Of course he could just be trying to sweeten me up because baseball season is almost here and he's going to be spending a lot of time analyzing his 12 fantasy teams!