My First Sewing Project – The Pattern and Fabric

One of my goals for this year is to complete one sewing project. We bought Emma a sewing machine for Christmas and while my goal for her is to complete her first project, I am doing one alongside her as well.

For those that don’t know me well, you should know my mom is a seamstress. She owns her own custom drapery and blinds business.  I’ve been around sewing my whole life.  We took some lessons but didn’t ever seem to catch onto it like her. I’m determined to get back on the proverbial horse and learn how to do this thang.

So, one afternoon my mom met me and the girls at Jo-Ann’s in Charlotte.  All we knew is we needed an easy pattern and some fabric and beyond that, we were clueless.  What pattern is actually easy?  What fabric will actually work with what pattern?  What other little thingies from the store will we need?  Basically, we were clueless.

Let me just say how totally overwhelming the fabric store is.  Not only are there many different types of fabrics but there are many different colors, with many different patterns in many different sizes.  And if you have to coordinate more than one fabric together, just…I can’t even. For this terrible decision maker it was like a nightmare.  Pick ALL THE FABRICS and make it look CUTE!  Now I know why people spend hours in fabric stores and are so very proud of their end products.

After much wandering around in circles looking like a deer in headlights, Lexi and I decided to both do this apron:

     

Emma decided to make a cozy pajama set but that will have to wait for another post.

To make it easier (or maybe just fewer decisions) I’m not doing alternating fabrics.  Here’s the fabric I picked that will be the top and skirt.

 

 

I wanted something that would coordinate with my interior colors so I can hang it on a hook in my kitchen and use it for decoration.  As you can see in the background, the colors are right up my usual alley.

 

 

For the sash at the waist, I went with a coordinating orange that has a small pattern in it.

 

And then, for the edging you use rick rack and I picked a red.

 

So I think cute, right?

 

The only problem?  No one told me I should maybe peek at the price tag.  Holy cow.  Once I master this, I could sell aprons for like $86 a piece!

 

Next steps are cutting out the pattern and then cutting out the fabric from the pattern.   And there’s the secret that no one tells you about sewing: it’s take a heckofalotof work to get to the sewing part.