With no major plans to travel this holiday weekend (read: Christmas and surrounding activities wiped out my expendable income), I decided to catch up on useful things — like sewing. As I've mentioned before on this blog, I took a sewing class a little while back in the Garment District here in New York City. For Christmas, Anthony decided to get me my very own sewing machine so now I can continue my hobby (and hopefully get somewhat better at it).
Upon first getting the sewing machine, I tested it out with some scrap fabric just to make sure it was functioning (after all, you don't want to throw away the packaging if the item doesn't work). However, I hadn't really used it since Christmas. I decided that my first test would be to hem a pair of jeans. I purchased these jeans which were supposed to be good for ladies with curves (like me!) but I bought them in the wrong inseam so they were way too long for me. They also sit a little higher than I prefer when it comes to jeans so if I messed them up, it wouldn't be too big a deal. Hooray for low standards!
I started to work on these by ripping out the existing hem. I have a seam ripper from when I took my sewing class but one also came with my sewing machine. Seam rippers are a lot of fun in that "ooh, I'm destroying something, but not really" kind of way. I then figured out where the real hem should go and marked it with some chalk. Everything was going pretty well until I got to the pressing part.
Most sewing relies on pressing, which is basically ironing. This is something I didn't really know about when I set out on trying to learn how to sew. I actually hate ironing. It's tedious and terrible to do when you have a terrible iron. When I realized my iron was terrible, I decided to invest in an upgrade. I got a Shark which works really well — it generates a lot of steam, even standing up, and it's got a little stopper so the water for the steam doesn't fall out (you don't know how many times I spilled the water out of my old sewing machine because it didn't have one of these!). Though I have a much better iron, pressing a garment is still somewhat annoying. And apparently, if your iron is too awesome at producing steam, you will cause water damage to your coffee table — despite your efforts at putting several layers of towel down. Take it from me, get yourself an ironing board if you are going to be pressing. I still haven't purchased one, but that's just because I'm cheap.
Once you've got the garment pressed, you can pretty much jump to sewing — finally! This was the part I was waiting for and was really excited about, until I remembered I was sewing on denim. Denim is a tougher fabric, especially when it is folded over itself multiple times. My machine didn't want to go backwards on 4 layers of denim and it told me so by splitting the needle in two parts. Thankfully, sewing machines come with plenty of extra needles, just in case that happens. I'm glad that I learned how to change the needle on my machine though. I feel more or less like a veteran of the sewing game.
At the end of my little battle with the machine, I emerged with a hemmed pair of jeans! There are two projects that I'd like to take on next. One project is to create a tote bag with a pattern I received in sewing class. I'm hoping to be able to use an old pair of jeans as fabric for the outside and maybe I'll use some silk I purchased for the lining on the inside, depending on if I have enough. The other project I'd like to work on is a dress I purchased from a sample sale not too long ago. I found that the hem on the dress is far too long for me and that I'd like to raise it some. I am pretty confident that I will be able to accomplish it now that I've already take the first step into altering my own clothes. Wish me luck!