My Sewing Machine

Matching homemade outfits -- oh yeah!

My mother is a fantastic seamstress. She made all of my clothing (except jeans and underwear, she is usually quick to point out) and Halloween costumes (everything from a fuzzy bunny to a unicorn) when I was a kid. She also stayed home with me until I was 3 and supplemented the household income by making costumes for the Peabody Dance School. She made me a flower girl dress for my Aunt MeeMoo’s wedding.

Basically, my mom is a sewing badass, though she doesn’t break out the machine as much anymore.

Singer 338

Recently I came into possession of the sewing machine that my mother used when she was learning to sew. My grandmother’s sewing machine. From the early ’60s. On the phone the other day, my Mommom informed me that she bought it in 1963. 

It’s green and loud and heavy.  

This Singer 338 is about to be 53, ya'll -- it deserves mad respect.

Really, there’s no reason I can’t do all of my sewing on this machine. My Mommom and Mom both did. (Mom’s got a super fancy newfangled plastic machine these days.) 

I’d also really rather not drop $500 on a brand new machine that’s willing to do quilting. Because I would really like to make a new quilt and cheap machines don’t have the wherewithal to manage heavy quilting. 

And I love my little blue 338.

Also, I just don’t trust a machine that weighs less than 20 pounds. There’s something just not right about that, let's be honest.

So I've carved out a little corner of the basement for a sewing area. There was a serendipitous coupon (Groupon? LivingSocial? The world may never know) for G Street Fabric, a fabulous store near here. It was $25 for $50 worth of merchandise. So naturally I bought the largest cutting mat I could find. And it fits perfectly on the table that used to hold Greg's miscellaneous papers. Yay for using a filing cabinet!

On the ironing board, you see my latest project, which I plan to wear this weekend to a fancy party -- and there will be finished-product pictures, don't you worry!  

I know it's a bit of a mess right now. 

But I've got major plans for this space, which looks a bit bare now. I've got a bookcase to put in there to hold all my fabrics and notions and things. And I plan to put up a magnetic knife strip for my scissors and a bulletin board I have leftover from another DIY project. Not to mention some pictures and my little TV -- gotta have something to listen to while I work! 

I have so many ideas for making my little sewing room into something both functional and cute (rather than the current mess.)

For now, though, it meets my needs and I'm having all kinds of fun with my little sewing projects -- even if I'm not quite up to fuzzy-bunny-level sewing just yet. ;)