Sewing Project Work in Progress

Just a quick update on my project. It's going pretty well and I'm excited to finish to see how these shorts turn out.

So far I've cut the fabric.




I've sewn the side seams together.




And started on the patch pockets.




I wasn't quite sure how to make patch pockets so I referred to the fabulous Fashion Sewing Blog TV hosted by +Colleen G Lea. I found her YouTube channel a few weeks ago and subscribed because her videos are so good; clear and concise. Watching her video on how to sew patch pockets was super helpful. Thanks +Colleen G Lea for your amazing tutorials.

My First Sewing Project

I've decided to sew a pair of shorts for my grandson for my first sewing project. My mom and I were in Jo-Ann Fabrics a few weeks ago and I saw the most adorable fabric and immediately thought, this would be super cute as a pair of shorts. So, my mom picked out a pattern for me while I was perusing the pattern books looking for others to buy that day and I got that fabric.

I'm using the Butterick 3475 pattern.




I think my little cuddle bug is going to totally rock these shorts!

What Sewing Machine Am I Using?

I'm using my sewing machine my mom bought and gave me on March 31, 1993. Yes, that is the correct date. How can I remember the exact date you ask? Well, we can thank my lovely mother for that. She is the queen of labeling and dating things.

The sewing machine I use is a Brother VX-1010. I made all of my maternity clothes on this sewing machine as well as my oldest daughters first bathrobe and bath towel. It still works very well and I plan to use it for a while. Although I must say, sewing machines now are so damned advanced with their fancy dancy computerized rocket ship features. I would love to buy a new one, but I'll most likely use the one I have for at least one year before thinking about investing in a new sewing machine.





I'm wondering what sewing machine are you using? Are you happy with your machine or do you have plans to buy a new machine--what kind?

My First Stitch in 19 Years

Since I decided to get back into sewing I've been itching to get going. I follow quite a few sewing blogs, but one in particular has my completely hooked and that is Tilly's blog Tilly and the Buttons. Tilly only started sewing a couple years ago and she's already making patterns. I gotta say I love this girl. You may have seen here on The Great British Sewing Bee.

I wanted to start getting familiar with my sewing machine again as well as reading and using patterns. After all, it's been 19 years; it's just like starting from square one and I forgot EVERYTHING!

The first thing I did was grab a piece of fabric, turn on my sewing machine, and just started stitching. Every motion felt like a baby's first step, not to mention, I completely forget how to thread my darn machine. Thank goodness I still had my handy dandy sewing machine manual.

Here's my first set of stitches.

I hit a few snags in the beginning; my thread got jammed up a few times and I didn't have my machine threaded properly, so I had to rethread it. But, all-in-all, I felt pretty comfortable and it felt so good to sew again. I figured it was better for me to start practicing on a scrap of fabric instead of trying to actually construct a garment right out the gate. 

I've been trying to figure out what garment I want to construct first; a skirt, a dress, a shirt, etc. I bought a few patterns a couple of weekends ago and I had every intention on making this one particular dress. I even bought fabric for it (stay tuned for that blog post), but then I visited Tilly's blog and fell in love with her Mathilde blouse. It is such a beautiful garment and I could picture myself wearing it A LOT, so yesterday I went ahead and purchased and downloaded it.

Sidenote: When I was sewing back in the day, of course digital PDF patterns didn't exist, so this is super new to me, but I kinda love it! It's so amazing to be able to download and print out a pattern. Not to mention, it's much more sturdy than your typical pattern.

I downloaded the Mathilde pattern and instructions and I immediately got super giddy. So, I'm reading the instructions and it mentions tucks, which the blouse has 6 of. Well, I didn't know what the hell a tuck was. I read her instructions, but just couldn't figure out how to make it. Caveat: This Mathilde blouse pattern may not be a beginners pattern, but hell, I'm up for the challenge and it's so pretty I'm determined to make it.

Since I couldn't figure out how to make a tuck, I did what any other self-respecting tech saavy sewist would do--I Googled "how to sew a tuck".  Low and behold, another sewer I just started following last week came up in the search, Raechel Myers who runs a really terrific blog and has some great tutorials on there. Raechel's "Sewing 101" tutorial has an entire lesson on how to sew tucks full on with step-by-step video instructions. 

I printed out Raechel's blind tuck marking guide and followed the videos to begin the lesson.

The marking guide and step-by-step videos helped me tremendously and the end result was a pretty good looking tuck; especially considering it was my first one.

Check out my tucks!

Now I know how to sew tucks for the Mathilde blouse pattern.

Thanks to Raechel Myers for the superb "Sewing 101" tutorials and to Tilly for crafting such a beautiful blouse pattern. I can't wait to submit my photo of my finished garment to go in the Mathilde photo gallery.

Check out Tilly on The Great British Sewing Bee. By the way, this show totally sucked me in. I am dying to see episode 4. 

A Stitcher is Reborn

Welcome to my new blog Saucy Stitcher! I'm so excited to start this blog and catalog my adventure re-entering the world of sewing--hence the title for this post. 

I have not touched a sewing machine in 19 years. YEP! 19 long years. The last thing I sewed was my oldest daughters first bath towel and bathrobe. I really missed sewing and I just decided to start sewing again.

So, here I go. 

Do you sew or have an interest in sewing? If you have a sewing blog, share it with me.