Learning to Sew

For years, I have wanted to learn to sew. How cool would it be if I could make clothing, etc. out of fabric? In 2009, I asked for a sewing machine for Christmas and got it. I would finally be able to cross 'learn to sew' off my bucket list! Well, fast forward to November 2010...

 At this time, a dear friend of mine, who has nursed 4 children, saw my nursing cover and mentioned that she has never had one. She said, "I'm going to get one of those...you know, if I ever breastfeed another baby." About 2 hours later, she told me she was pregnant. I mentioned the whole exchange to Matt later and he came up with a great idea. He said, "Since she wants a nursing cover and you STILL haven't learned to use that sewing machine of yours, why don't you make her one? That way, she'll get the cover she wants and you'll have a deadline for learning how to sew!" Brilliant. That gave me 7 months to learn to sew (or find a nice cover online and rip the tags out...). Fast forward to May 2011...

I decided, with less than a month until Baby's due date, that it was finally time! I Googled, "How to make a nursing cover" and related phrases until I found a great, easy-to-understand You Tube video that told me everything I needed to know about making nursing covers. This girl made like 5 in one afternoon! This must be a piece of cake!

It probably would be a piece of cake for someone who knew how to operate their machine (you know, without reading 3 pages of instructions between each step) and sew a straight line (you know, without having an anxiety attack before stepping on the foot pedal).

So, I had to practice making straight lines. I'm still not perfect by any means, but I've improved a lot! I got an old bedsheet and cut the right size pieces out of it (like the video told me to). It just about took an act of Congress to cut the fabric. Who knew you needed special fabric scissors?

Here are some pics of my rough draft

 If you look closely, you can see a little zig-zag....

 Look at that corner...yikes!

Well, making the first draft made me see what I needed to change. I got most of my kinks worked out and I think I did pretty well on the real thing! I'll post it once it has been gifted. Wouldn't want to ruin the surprise!