Learning to sew

I have decided to learn to sew.  My children are both in school, and from 9:15 AM to 11:40 AM, I have time to myself.  I have made a list of projects, and learning to sew is at the top. My mother-in-law, Mary Anne, has agreed to teach me, and my neighbor, Howard, has offered me the use of his late wife's sewing machine.  I am ready.

My last time sewing, besides sewing on buttons or cross-stitching, was in my Home Economics class that we were required to take my 8th grade year. That would've been in the '70s. They split up the 8th graders with half the class taking Home Ec. and the other half taking Industrial Arts for the first half of the year. Then they were switched. Both classes stand out clearly in my mind. In Home Economics, we learned to sew and to cook.  My first project in sewing was a wallet that I made out of denim. It ended up quite large, and I painted my brother's initials on it in green fluorescent paint.  I vaguely remember him saying he would never be caught dead with it.

The second project (and our final grade) was to sew an outfit that we would model in a school-wide fashion show. Most of the girls chose dresses. I decided instead to sew a jumpsuit. The fabric was gabardine.  I had never heard of gabardine then, and I have never run across it since.  The gabardine fabric was beige.  I imagined how great I would look modeling it.

Most of the time, as it is with my children, my mother was the one I turned to for assistance with homework and school projects. Not, however, in sewing. This was not her forte. At all. When my father had holes in his pants pockets, she stapled them together. While she could sew on a button, that was the extent of her abilities. She turned to our neighbor Sue for any and all sewing and alterations. But she was not without ideas, and so, when it became clear that I was not going to meet the deadline for the sewing project, she packed me and my gabardine fabric into the car and drove two and a half hours to my Great Aunt Helen's farm.

Aunt Helen was a retired Home Economics teacher, and it was up to her to help me finish the jumpsuit. Her sewing room was in her bedroom, and I tried very hard to pay attention and to listen to her instructions, but I probably spent way more time taking in the things about her room as it wasn't one where we ever ventured. Plus, sewing and cutting and marking and all that other nonsense were just too tedious and back-breaking. I hated it. I always messed up the bobbin, and the threading and my stitches were crooked and UGH. 

Realizing this, my Aunt Helen finally ended up finishing what was left. I'm not sure what I got on the outfit. Probably a C. The jumpsuit was worn in the fashion show and a few times after, but I don't know what happened to it. I do know, however, that that was the end of my sewing. 

Until now... My MIL began with a simple pattern, and we set to work.  Surprisingly, my 8th-grade education returned. I could thread the machine. I remembered bobbins. I recalled backstitching, pining patterns, and the chalk thing used on the fabric. If I had known how to contact my Home Economics teacher from 8th grade, I'd have let her know she did something right. 

We began by laying out the pattern on my dining room table. Can someone explain why in the world patterns are made with tissue paper? Why not something more durable? And why for heaven's sake are all the sizes on the same tissue paper so that you have to get out your own tissue paper to trace the pattern of the size you need?  It's all so time-consuming. And boring. My back started hurting from bending, and eventually, my MIL finished that task and cut it out. I love to cut. I find it peaceful, and I'm very good at it.

We had to stop when we realized we didn't have the interfacing. I had no idea what the hell interfacing was then, but I've since gone to the fabric store and purchased it. I do not, however, know what it is.  I've looked at all the dresses in my daughter's closets, and I don't see any with interfacing.  I should look it up in a dictionary.

Since we had no interfacing, my MIL left.  She handed me the instructions and told me to start sewing, and then SHE LEFT.  That right there had me paralyzed for a day. Then I got the interfacing and began following her instructions to read the instructions and start sewing. Suddenly more memories of my 8th-grade sewing class came back.  

Memories like the machine jamming.  The bobbin thread losing its place.  How to pull out a stitch with that special puller outer.  The fact that I hate sewing. All of that came back with a vengeance. 

I think I should've started with a pillowcase or something easier first.