Wednesday, March 22, 2023

Spring 2023 Sewing Class So Far

Well, we're already three weeks into the spring session of sewing class, but there's plenty more to come.  This is usually when I start to panic that it's going by much too fast, but thankfully this session isn't racing by.  So far, we've only had four classes!

Last week was cancelled due to the massive snowstorm we got on Tuesday the 14th.

Usually, I'd be pretty crushed to miss a week of class, but this time, I was thrilled.  I won't lie, I was like a kid checking to see if we had "school".  In fact, I spent most of Monday evening refreshing the local news websites to see if our district had cancelled school yet.  Around 8:00 PM, I checked one last time and I saw that the kids were having a remote learning day.  A minute later, I checked my email and I had received two emails at 7:40 from the adult education office stating that both my morning and our evening class were cancelled and that they'd be rescheduled.

I was relieved since last week was a hot mess.  It's just as well that we didn't have class.  Eliot's had some "big wigs" at work last week and part of this week.  (It's been a huge deal since some are from Japan and Europe.)  He's been stuck in meetings all day, and a few days he's had to work late.  I was really worried about him being able to leave work in time to get to class.  This took the stress out of it.  Plus, he ended up having to stay over two hours extra Tuesday night, so it worked out for the best!

Another great thing about missing last week's classes was that I have had more time to figure out what projects I want to work on.  Instead of being in class last week, I took some time to look at Pinterest and go through some old notes on my computer.  I have a bunch of things that I've wanted to work on, so I went through everything and made a detailed list so I have a path forward!  And that's definitely helped!

Our first few classes have been good.  I spent most of my first morning sewing class working on my Ariel, Steamboat Willie and Princess Sketch tote bags.  I put the liners in all of them and got those all sewed together.  Then, my plan was to spend the evening class turning them out through the tiny openings that I left in the lining.

We only had one sewing machine for Eliot's first evening class.  Lori had an extra one for him to use, but I realized it didn't make sense for him to start on a machine that might be overwhelming.  My little Singer Simple machine is all he really needed.  So I helped him get all set up and started with working it.

It ended up working really well.  The evening class is full, and many of the people in class have never sewn before.  I was able to help Eliot and that meant Lori could move between the other students.  I ended up helping out where I could.  I didn't want to work on any machines, but I was able to help show the others how to put their "ugly potholders" together and assemble them.  And everyone made great progress!

I think Eliot's potholder turned out pretty good.  He was critical of himself, but I told him that he did a really good job for his first time.  Most importantly, he seemed to enjoy himself.  He was the only man in the entire class, but it didn't phase him.  On the ride home, he was talking about his project and asking me questions.  He also mentioned the fall class, so I took that as a good sign if he's already planning to join me again!

After that first class, I knew that I needed a few supplies.  I also made a list of things that we'd have to get another set of if both Eliot and I were going to be sewing at the same time.  It made sense to get more pins, another pin cushion, scissors and stuff like that so we'd both have them available to us.  I was also anxious to start looking at pillow fabrics.  We don't even do pillowcases until the last two sessions of the first class, but I was too excited to go with Eliot to pick something out! 

We went shopping at Joann for fabrics before we went to one of our Maine Mariners games.  I wanted Eliot to get an idea what they had for fabrics.  Then, if he didn't see anything that he liked, we would have plenty of time to order some online.  He ended up picking out the Sesame Street print that I had been looking at a few trips ago.  I bought Pixar Up fabric to make a pillow case.  I figured that I might as well make one too since we can use them on our pillows at Mom and Dad's house... that way we'll know which ones are ours!  Eliot and I still need to get the accent colors for the trim and cuff, but since we don't actually need the fabric until the last two sewing classes, we're well ahead of schedule!  (Which is good because I'm usually scrambling!)

Unfortunately, I hit a bit of a roadblock during both of my classes this week.  First, registration for the Wine and Dine RunDisney event was yesterday at 10:00 am... right as class was starting.  You can read all about that here, but the short story is that I stayed home to make sure Eliot was registered, so I missed the first hour and 15 minutes of class.  I did finally go, but I left all of my stuff in my car and visited more than did anything... so it was kind of a wasted class.

Then, Eliot's new sewing machine, that he ordered over a week ago, was mailed out on Monday, and it's supposed to arrive today.  So he had to use my machine again... which meant another class of no sewing for me.  I was able to get a bit of cutting done, but I literally only cut the black strap fabric for my Halloween tote, and a small section off of Eliot's Sesame Street fabric to use for a tote bag.  

In the end, I guess it didn't really matter too much though.  My sewing machine was being a butt and Eliot barely got his box made.  The stitches were all off, and no matter how many times we threaded the machine, it didn't want to cooperate.  I'll have to play around with it next class and see if I can get it all figured out.  Hopefully, I'll be able get it working properly again, and Eliot will have his machine so he can start getting used to that.  Then, we'll also both be able to sew during the evening class!

I have plenty of things that I want to get finished and work on this session.  We are already 1/4 of the way through our spring classes, so I want to start making progress!  

As you can see, our spring 2023 sewing classes are going well so far!  Eliot's learning how to use a machine.  I'm well on my way to actually finishing projects that I've spent years working on.  And we have an "extra" (make up) class in May... yay!!!  °o°

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