Today at work, I borrowed my friend's sewing machine. He had bought it about a year ago to hem his pants that he bought at the thrift store. This is the first time the machine has been used. Incidentally, I forgot to load up my car with my recyclables to give to him (My community does not offer recycling, so I let mine build up to about 3-4 bags and then tote them in to work for him to recycle for me. I feel like I offset any recycling because I need to use new garbage bags to hold my recycling). Anyway, here is the sewing machine. It's a tiny little thing meant for hems and repairs. This brought me back to home ec at Log College Middle School where giant pillows and bean bags were the assignments for sewing.
First, I had to re-pin my cut up duvet cover. I had already pinned it 3 times last night and was not satisfied with any of them. After talking to the hubster before bed last night, I agreed with him that I was making it too complicated for my own good. With the new approach, I spent about 15 minutes re-pinning the pillow cover.
I read the instruction manual and started winding my bobbin and threading my machine. When both were complete, I did a test run on a sample piece of fabric that came with the machine. My needle kept getting stuck! I decided that I had threaded the bobbin wrong, so I tried sewing with the pre-wound bobbin and it worked fine. I unwound my bobbin (which made me mad because I wasted all that thread!) and re-wound it. I set the machine up and it worked! I was in business.
Here's a snapshot of my side work station: pins, water, thread, sewing kit, and iPad for tunes.
So the reason that this was "sew" easy was because it was sewing 1 line that had a 90 degree turn in it! I remembered some tricks from home ec that made the turn super easy. The little sewing machine worked like a charm. The only thing that it was a bit unsatisfactory was that the guide/fabric mover was not strong enough to pull the fabric so sometimes it would stitch over the same area a few times until I helped it along. So overall, the project took about an hour: 55 minutes to figure out the bobbin and 5 minutes to actually the sew the thing.
Here is the finished product:
You can definitely tell that its 3 pillows in this picture.
Another view. I really like the fabric.
It just works with everything else in the room.
Red giving it a test run.
I really need to get rid of the Rock Band drums.
And it's final resting places with the girls. That's right, that's where you guys are going to live when I'm crafting. They seem to enjoy it though when they go on the bed by themselves, they don't understand that they are supposed to share it because Egg Roll will sit on the center pillow and Red will stretch out over all 3 pillows.
So a breakdown of my semi-DIY dog pillows:
Duvet Cover - $13.32
Pillows - $13.42
Thread - already had
Sewing machine - borrowed
Total - $26.74
Not to shabby. $7 more than what was at Marshalls which were not as firm and comfy AND didn't have the right colors. I"m quite pleased with myself. I don't think this means I'm taking up sewing, but it's good to know that 7th grade home ec paid off!
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