Reaping what I sewed

Sure, this thing took hours to finish, and it's not perfect, but I can say I made it. I dare say it's not bad for a first made-from-scratch sewing project:

I've been saving bags full of old clothes, scraps of fabric, ribbons, buttons, and lace trims long before I knew what to do with them. One of those items is a brown velveteen shirt that I no longer wear. I love the luxurious feel and rich chocolate brown color, and I've always known that I wanted to make something out of it. Unfortunately, the edges of this soft, stretchy fabric often got eaten by the teeth that fed fabric forward as I sewed, thereby jamming the machine quite a bit. And let's not even get into the stupid things I did with the buttonhole foot and the process of sewing the button hole (or, for that matter, my uneven attempts to finish the edges with fancy stitches in lieu of the overlock foot or serger that I don't have). Given the difficulties of working with a stretchy fabric, I'm pretty proud of my end product.

Right before I made this, I repaired a top that I purchased from the thrift store a while ago, but haven't worn because of a busted zipper. The zipper foot really works wonders in seconds. I can see that this sewing machine is a wise investment already.

And the day before that, I struggled with threading the machine, particularly the bobbin. I overtightened the bobbin tension screwed and cracked a side of it, but the screw is still in one piece and is doing its job. Hopefully I won't kill the machine too soon (the bits and pieces of the fabric eaten by the machine has probably already caused indigestion problems).

Next time, I'll go back to mastering the basics using some less-complicated fabrics. It's a frustrating and long learning process, but I think it'll be worth it.