Sewing. me? really?  A year ago I probably would have told you that you were crazy if you said I would be a Sewing Ninja, making purses, bags, quilts, burp cloths, baby blankets, diaper bags, travel bags and whatever else gets thrown in my head to create.  Me? A seamstress? Ha!  Well, I probably still wouldn't call myself a seamstress. I could do the stress part, but the seam, well we might have a few doubters on that....lol

For a person who hates to measure, you would think I would run from sewing. Granted, I have had a sewing machine since my early twenties when my mom (the ORGINAL Sewing Ninja) taught me some basics so I could make Stockings for Christmas that year. Well, the stockings turned out to be a horrible mess, but they held stuff, so they still count right?? Who knew you had to cut out the PRE-PRINTED FABRIC PANELS with some extra for,,you guessed it, SEAM ALLOWANCE. These things were hideous, but knowing my Mom, she probably told me they looked wonderful (while inside her head she was a screaming mad woman asking why why why) and we hung them up that year. Actually, 20 years later, I still have them. I take them out every year with my Christmas stuff and I have a good laugh at myself. This year, taking into account of all that I have learned this last year in sewing, I will probably laugh a whole lot harder (and probably have the same little woman running around in my head screaming WHY WHY WHY)...LOL

Over the years, I have been known to sew a curtain or two, maybe a pillow, but nothing much outside of anything square. Definitely nothing with a zipper or heaven forbid, a BUTTON. (yeah, I have a button story, that will be another day..lol)  So a few months back, I get this crazy idea to make a Curling Iron cover that would be great for travel. I always hated having to wait for it to cool down before I could pack it in my suitcase, so I started taking an oven mitt with me on vacations. I could slip it in there while still hot and not worry about it melting anything. So here I am in the fabric aisle, looking for the stuff I need to make this awesome Iron cover (which to this day I STILL have not made, but that is besides the point right?)  so I stumble across this cute kitchen fabric that I just had to have! I thought, well I will make a pot holder and oven mitt first to get my feet wet. I choose the Potholder from an easy pattern I bought. A potholder. Easy right? eeerrrrrrrrccccckkkkkk!  wrong!!  That damm potholder about killed me!!!  Who knew a F&*^*g potholder was THIS hard???? What was I thinking? I can't do this crap!!  (warning, if you are sensitive to cuss words, you might want to stop here. Not that I plan to throw any in, and have tried my best not to, sometimes they just creep in. The world is too dull without them if you ask me. Sometimes the F word is the only way to truly express what you are trying to say. Are there better words to use? hmmm maybe sometimes, but I tend to like that word for it's versatility. judge me, I dont care. My Blog. My Words. ) So back to the damm potholder. The Bias tape was horrible. Later I found out, we just happened to buy a really shitty brand of it so I am still willing to try another project using it but if there are other projects to do without it, you can probably guess I will do those first...lol When I finally finished the potholder, I suddenly realized HOW MUCH F$&%*^&^ WORK it is to SEW!!! If someone told me Potholders cost 40 dollars each I would totally hand them my money after that!! I was knocked down, hell I was bleeding!! But thankfully, I am never the person to get knocked down and stay there!!! Just cant do it. So.... I picked myself up, dusted myself off, might of grabbed a few band aids for my dented pride (hahaha she got beat up by a potholder) and decided, that pot holder was not going to win!

So my next project was a Tea Cozy. It was my great idea (which really means bad idea but who's counting) for a birthday gift. You know, for those people that you can't find anything for because they already have everything. I thought "oh, they love tea. I could make this. It would be something she definitely didnt have, and she was the kind of person that would appreciate someone taking the time to make something. (of course she has no idea it took me two flippin weeks (hey look, I used a "cleaner" f-word..lol)  and during those two weeks, there were times I wanted to quit. Plenty of times I said "what the hell was I thinking??" and even "I should have just bought some diamond earrings, it would have been easier than this crap" not to mention I probably made up some new cuss words....lol  Through a lot of the process, I kept thinking "this is not going to work. this makes no sense. why did I bother. who am I kidding? this doesn't look right."  Thankfully my Sewing Ninja Mom was there to guide me, show me, teach me, explain to me what they meant in the instructions (and usually an easier way to do it than the directions called for..lol) so when we finally reached the end, and the last few pieces were put together,,, it happened. yes it happened,,,, the Sewing bug bit me. and bit me HARD. All of a sudden I realized what amazing things you could do with a sewing machine. Suddenly that fabric stash I have had all these years, all the boxes of fabric I kept shoving under beds, in closets, in storage,,,suddenly they were like GOLD. A few months after the Tea Cozy, as I was making more and more things, my husband said to me "Wow, you are really getting into this sewing thing" and I quickly reminded him "You knew I had a fabric stash when you married me, you should have seen it coming"...lol

Till next time....