Sewing 101

Over the last month or so, I have been working on some no-sew and sewing projects that were inspired by Pinterest. (Because who isn't inspired by Pinterest these days?!)

I started with a no-sew project of turning mini blinds into roman shadess. Of course, on Pinterest it sounds like a super easy project that you can whip out in one evening...yeah, not so much if you want it to look decent at all. But here are a few pictures of the process.


Cutting the blind apart


Only had to keep a few of the slats


Gluing the lining on (this is a step I added myself)


Ironing...and ironing...and ironing..


Letting the glue dry

Ok, so it took what felt like forever to square up the material and iron it down and such. And there was a definite learning curve, so the second two shades are better than the first one. But I still ended up working on the project over a several day time frame.

Then we hung them up in Garytt's room. They may not be perfect but it is a definite improvement over the horrible roller shades.





After that project, I decided it was time for me to actually learn how to sew basic things since I wanted to add curtains to Garytt's room, too. Justin had gotten me a sewing machine for Christmas that I hadn't even had a chance to try out yet. So, I loaded it up with us when we went to Kansas and took some sewing lessons from my mom.

We started with a small project that I had seen on Pinterest...hooded bath towels. (You may have seen them in the picture of the Easter baskets for the boys.) Here are some pictures of me working hard...fortunately I look happy or concentrated in most of the pictures rather than frustrated...ha!













Here they are all wrapped up for Easter. (You may notice that the material I sewed onto the bath towels looks a lot like the material used for the roman shades...yeah I totally bought too much material...beginners mistake I guess...)



When we got home to Wisconsin, the boys finally got to use them at bath time.





I really like the size for Garytt. He was just way too big for the baby size hooded towels! So, yet another successful Pinterest project!

After I finished sewing the hooded towels, I decided that it was time to tackle the project of making curtains for Garytt's room. Ok, so, really, who knew it took so much effort to make a rectangle and turn under the edges?! I mean, the actual sewing part didn't take nearly as long as measuring, cutting, ironing, pinning...

I didn't manage to get any pictures of me making the curtains, but I was super excited to hang them up in Garytt's room when we got back!





Here is a close-up of the material. It is, of course, fun Dr. Seuss characters! (And you will again notice that I added some of the red and white material to it, like I said, lots and lots of extra material. But I think it makes it look like the shades purposefully match the curtains.)





I can now say I have the ablility sew a rectangle with a pocket for a curtain rod. Whoop!

Seriously though, I am thrilled with the way they turned out and am very thankful to my mom for being a great (and patient) teacher. My mathematical nature was a challenge at times because, apparently, it is nearly impossible to actually get material square but to me it is just a geometry problem...and geometry is exact. So, thanks mom for being patient and teaching me that it won't be perfect but it will be perfect enough!