Getting Reacquainted With My Sewing Machine (or the day I officially became my Mother)

My first sewing machine was an ancient one, with the cabinet, at least it was electric! No bells or whistles but it was great. D's mother gave me a sewing machine a few years ago and I have never touched it. Between work and everything else I never had the time or energy. I finally got it out yesterday, and I was a little rusty, but I didn't do too bad!

It's Fall in Erie, which means one day it could be 80 degrees and sunny and the next is dreary and about 3 degrees from freezing. My apartment is older, which means drafts appear everywhere, places you didn't even think drafts could exist! I decided my first project with the beast (I like to come up with loving nicknames for all my stuff) would be draft stoppers. I have had quite a few over the years, but with cats and kids and a couple of moves they have disappeared. I made just simple tubes of some leftover navy fleece I had. (I was a bit nervous about using fleece with the cat hair, but that's what I had scraps of) Ah, now time to stuff them, what to use? I don't want to waste my polyfill, what do I have? I seriously dislike plastic grocery bags, I own about 20 cloth shopping bags but I still end up with quite a few of them. I save them up and then throw them in the recycling but they haven't gone out in about a month. That's when I got the brilliant idea to use them to stuff the draft stoppers. They came out great, I was thrilled but then I heard the voice in my head (which always sounds like Sam Elliot) drawl "And this was the moment Jennifer realized she had become her mother". 

Little side note about my mother. Ever catch those "Hoarders" shows? My mother has earned her "HOA" and is well on her way to getting the rest of the letters. Growing up it used to drive me crazy the stuff she would save, You never know when you're going to need something. My mother is wonderful, she's the type of person who will show up at your house with 2 bags of groceries, some clothes, some dishes, whatever she finds in her warehouse  (or what the rest of the world calls a dining room). On the downside of that, whenever you walk through her warehouse you fear a little for your life, afraid that one of the piles might fall on you and you'll end up trapped for months. Then again, going to her house is like hitting a garage sale, you never know what you're going to walk out with!

By this time I felt I was comfortable enough to move on, so, with this:

The Beast... She's so perty!!  And so mint green!!

I made these:

The purple one matches my curtains!

My new favorite type of pillow to make is this:

Harem!!  Don't ya love the name?

I just love the way they look, the way they feel! Eventually my place will be filled with them and I may be able to do away with most of my furniture!! My daughters had two Harry Potter floor cushions they have outgrown and I'm thinking of recovering them. I love floor cushions. Hell, I love any kind of pillow. It's an addiction and I have yet to find a 12-step program for them. I will probably spend the next week sneaking in a pillow or seven between other projects!

GirlChild#2 walks in last night amidst the pillows I've made and starts eying them up, deciding which one she was stealing. So Not Happening. We ended up going through the fabric I have and she picked these for her pillow:

And no, she is not on drugs

I ended up making her a half body pillow, and if you're eyes can get past the patterns, this is what we ended up with:

Cool on one side, Warm on the other

She's happy with it, that's what counts. I believe it's the multiple child syndrome, now she won't have to share it with anyone else because NOONE else will want it!

Now that I've got the beast out, I've got a few hundred things I want to do. Seat cushion for my vanity-to-be, pajama pants for yule presents (my family lives in them! Right now I'm sporting the sexiest fleece Eeyore ones! I have never been very good at making clothing but I'm going to master it this month!) I want to pull down my living room curtains and line them for a little extra insulation and about 97 more things!

The last time I left Momma's, among the goodies I scavenged were two white cotton full flat sheets. I'm going to dye those black and make a table cloth or two for my kitchen. I have practically no counter space in my kitchen and it is not big enough to add any so quite a bit happens on my table. I figure two tablecloths for the big table and two for the side table will be good enough. I'm sure I'll figure something out.

Oh well, I'm off to class. Then back to find more things to sew!

Till then...