Remember when my amazing boyfriend bought me a sewing machine for Christmas, and I vowed to use it every second of every day? Well, that didn’t really happen, but I did want to open up a whole avenue of sewing for myself.
I did do just that, but just not as much with the machine as I originally thought.
When we were putting together the craft room, way back when, I discovered a little lap quilt that my grandmother had previously been working on before she passed away. She was about one-quarter of the way through the binding, but everything else was finished.
Cute, right?
She still had the sewing needle left in it. Big feelings in a little tiny quilt right there.
So, I took what I had learned about rolled hems for skirts and dove in. I really like seeing our stitches right next to each other. Hers, a teeny bit wonky because she had been sewing quilt bindings forever and knew that no one will even take a second glance at the back of the quilt. Mine, ridiculous in how much I wanted each one to be perfect and even and straight.
But I think I did a pretty good job.
I even taught myself how to go around the corners, just by looking at the one corner she had done. Not too bad!
It’s tiny, only exactly big enough to go on your lap while you’re sitting on the couch, but it’s lovely and now it’s a usable item when it wasn’t before. The cats have claimed it as their own, of course, and love to perch on it while sitting on the coffee table.
After completing that project, two serendipitous things happened. Number one, Bernadette Banner’s lovely handsewing book came out.
Number two? My SewStine 2022 Dumpster Fire pocket arrived! If you don’t follow SewStine on YouTube and you’re a fan of ridiculous niche, beloved crafting projects, you really should. She creates painstakingly detailed machine embroidery projects, often replicating historical garments, and her stuff is just so beautiful and fun. This weird wonderful stand-alone pocket is no exception.
She offered the kit, which includes the silk outer fabric with the embroidery, twill backing fabric, bias tape, and twill tape for making a waistband, originally in 2020, but made a limited amount earlier this year, and I jumped all over it. When it came, I sat down with Bernadette’s book (and her extremely useful pocket kit assembly video) to put my pocket together.
I backstitched like a champ.
I pinned out all that bias tape ribbon, around curves and slits and points, and took a deep breath, knowing that my grandmother somehow inadvertently prepared me for this.
And I did it! A million tiny binding stitches, both front and back, to keep my pocket strong.
To say I am proud would be a profound understatement.
Now I have a little crafting friend, to hold scissors or thread or a ball of sock yarn while I work on a project and flit about the house. And it has a literal dumpster fire on it. It’s perfection.
I promise I’ll get back to the machine eventually. And the knitting needles. (Psst, I already did and this is just silly storytelling cliffhanger stuff. But you know that already.)
jingersnaps 