Merrily I Sew Along

As I mentioned last week, I've been bit by the sewing bug. Hard. My mother bought me a sewing machine for Xmas last year after I expressed a motherly desire to be able to eventually make Halloween costumes for Ruby. Because of my knitting habit (or, more specifically my 2006 sock obsession), vacation, the move and general busy-ness, I didn't even take the machine out of the box until very recently. Also, I was intimidated and too shy/busy/lazy to take a sewing class. Anyway, Aaron's been out of town a lot lately, giving me plenty of sewing time in the evening, so I decided to go for it. Once I figured out that I was using the wrong size bobbin, I fell in love with the machine.

With the machine my mom gave me a bunch of fixin's, a Simplicity apron pattern and some cheapo Walmart fabric to cut my teeth on. So, over the course of the last week, I whipped up this little apron. There are lots of mistakes (I totally botched the ties) and the finishing leaves much to be desired, but overall, I think it's pretty darn cute. I have a grand vision of making a few of these with Jenny Hart embroidery on the pockets and giving them as gifts. I don't know if I can swing it by Christmas (my sewing time is pretty limited, what with Ruby and all, so I may have to crank out smaller knit gifts and some Wee Wonderfuls), but maybe I can stock pile a couple aprons for birthdays. Either way, I'm excited and after a trip to a beautiful quilt store in my neighbourhood and little scared of the price of nice fabric. I'm already having trouble fitting my yarn habit into my budget -- how am I going to afford kitschy Japanese fabric?