Sewing When You're Sewing-Impaired

I've sewed, honestly. In 7th grade. We had to make these stuffed animal-like pillows from a kit. There wasn't a whole lot of work behind it. You cut the felt, attached it to the fabric (which you also cut to pattern), and then sewed the pillow shut from the inside out. Pillows are probably the easiest thing you can make... no hemming, no worrying about what to do with the seam allowance afterwards, etc. So naturally, I never learned "real" sewing in that class. Over the years, I always said I wanted to learn, but never got around to taking a class. My MIL is an excellent seamstress so whenever I needed something done, I usually asked her. A couple weeks before the Christmas before last, I asked her to hem a couple pairs of pants for me. Usually I just fold up the cuffs and let it be...everything's too long or too short on me and I don't have the time to fuss with getting it right. 2 weeks later, I got a sewing machine from my MIL for Christmas. Hint? Once again, I decided I would take those lessons. I bought a pattern to make fleece socks. I made a fleece drawstring bag for my ski goggles. I made a pillow for my MIL and one for myself. And that was about it... The pillow for my MIL is still not closed to this day. I guess once I started reading things about seam allowances and what to do with them, my brain shut down and refused to pay attention.

What does this have to do with anything? As a part of my somewhat obsessive nature, I've been avidly researching different baby things as the weeks go on. Strollers took up a good chunk of February (in case you couldn't tell ;) ) but then I moved on to baby carriers. I ordered a custom-made pouch on eBay on January 29th. It has yet to arrive. :-/ I started looking into what other options there were out there (ring slings, wraps, etc, etc, etc) and had the brilliant idea that I should be able to make one myself. After all, the pouch is essentially just sewing the ends of a piece of fabric together. How hard can it be?

I eagerly picked out my fabric on my lunch break today (in the middle of a nasty snow storm, mind you) and looked forward to this evening when I would get to work. I had my pattern from online, all I needed to do was thread the machine (which required referencing the instruction booklet) and get started. The pattern said it should take 30 minutes after you've picked out the fabric, so I figured an hour tops. Almost 3 hours later, I was not a happy camper. I read online that the fabric I picked out might not have been sturdy enough, but a simple solution was available-to double up the fabric. Easy enough since I only needed half the width anyway. Except I don't think the needle that came with my sewing machine is meant to go through 8 layers of fabric at one time. It made finishing it up quite frustrating, especially since the thread kept breaking and instead of stepping back and admitting defeat for the night, I kept pushing on, mumbling curses under my breath every time I rethreaded the machine. I don't think I'll need the instruction booklet again for a while to do that, that's for sure! Just when I thought I was done, I noticed some of the fabric didn't get into the seam like it should have. GRRRRRR! At this point, even Brian was begging me to stop, but I told him that if I didn't finish it tonight, I never would. Eventually, I did finish it. Just under 3 hours total. Thread all over the place from having to rethread, pull seams, etc, etc, etc. And a very freaked out dog since she had to be the model inside the pouch since there was obviously no baby to try it out with.




I'm happy to say, it didn't fall apart with my dog in it. It doesn't look pretty, but it's at least functional. And it doesn't seem like I messed up the sizing too much (you have to get the sizing just right on a pouch or it's useless). What did I do to celebrate? I ordered the wrap I was thinking of making from somebody who has a lot more experience doing it.

I'm not packing away the sewing machine just yet. I just would like to know that at least one of the carriers in my arsenal was made correctly. :)