I took my sewing machine and went to Melanie’s yesterday for a sewing party.  We had a really good time!  The idea was to sew together, but for the most part, she just helped me figure out what I was doing while I navigated my first project in more than 15 years.  I am so grateful to have had her help.  Though we had a few technical glitches, like a bobbin that wouldn’t behave (pet named “ill luck bobbin”), everything went very smoothly.  I made a bag, a simple project that actually took me about 7 hours to finish.  It’s a long time, but the final product came out really good!  So good, in fact, I wanted to share the pics with y’all.

(Please click the images to see them larger!!)

I hope you enjoyed seeing the pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them! I had a really great time working on this bag and will likely make several more of them in different fabrics and colors. I have Melanie to thank for finding the brown fabric with the teal circles, we were looking for fabric when she pointed it out and I loved it the second I saw it. I have enough extra that I’m going to make dice bags out of it.

My next project, as you can imagine, will be dice bags — going to work on it next Saturday. I got some fabric last night so I could make some, one of which will be for Matt, who chose a gray fabric with skulls on it. I should have known he’d pick something like that. I don’t think there are patterns for dice bags, but they’re fairly simple, so I’m not concerned. Might hunt around the net for instructions, I don’t know yet.

Today, I feel like I got a workout yesterday. It’s funny how exhausting sewing is. It’s very rewarding, but it’s exhausting, too. I’m looking forward to sewing next weekend!!

What doesn’t kill me will make me stronger, what doesn’t kill me will make me stronger, what doesn’t kill me will make me stronger… okay, enough of that.

You’ve just read what seems to be my motto for the fall. Those of you who read here with any regularity know that I had a horrible summer. Those who don’t, well, I had a horrible summer. Now everyone knows. Everything that could go wrong did. The stove going out, work, my grandmother passing… horrible… freaking… summer. Now that fall’s here, I’m trying hard not to have a horrible freaking fall, too, but I’m also feeling like by the time Christmas break comes, I’ll be ready for a break.

I started school and work on Monday, but that wasn’t where things began. I had orientations and meetings last Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Turn around from that and I was at the school bright and early Monday morning. So far, school’s okay, but as one would expect with graduate school, I have a lot of work already! Work is busy, busy, but will get busier next week when the labs start. Right now, I work every day in the writing center, observe basic writing two mornings a week, attend a weekly meeting but starting next week I’ll also teach two lab sections and work every other Wednesday evening in the library from 5-8 doing writing center stuff.

That’s not to say I’m not enjoying it, because so far, I am. I’m also exhausted and it’s only Thursday, but I’ve been assured that that will get easier. I’m looking forward to all of this becoming routine, because I need to lull into a sense of routine to keep my sanity. I have the feeling that it won’t be routine for a while yet, which is expected. With every job, and every semester, a period of adjustment is normal… right? Gah, I hope so, because if not, the exhaustion and subtle confusion are just me and I hate when things like this are just me.

Right now, my biggest concern is next weeks start of labs. I am petrified with fear over having to teach these labs. I know it’s nothing to be worried about, I know I know more than basic writers, but all the knowledge in the world isn’t putting to bed the fear that I’m going to screw up, or look like an idiot, or come off unprofessional. In all this fear, I do have moments of lucidity and sheer, unadulterated confidence that I can do this, but the other 23 hours and 59 minutes a day, I’m terrified. I’m hoping it’ll pass once it’s over, or at the very least ease as the semester progresses. We’ll see if my nerves can do that, or if I’m just a total basket case from here on out.

I have to say, though, I know that at least part of my problem is the realization that presentations are all around me and that I can’t escape them. I have to teach the labs as a part of the GA job, which I understood when I took the job, but I also have to do a presentation and a class discussion thing in my British Lit class and give presentations about the writing center as a part of my writing center duties. Fear of public speaking be damned, it’s something I have to do. Yay for being a grown-up, grad student with grown-up grad student responsibilities.

Two years, two years, two years… yeah, repetition because I learned in high school senior psych that you have to repeat things if you hope to commit them beyond your short term memory. Not that the fact that it’ll take two years needs be committed, I know it with every shred of my being. May 2012, it seems like forever but by the time I get working on everything that needs be worked on, I’m sure I’ll wonder where the hell the time went.

To top it all off, though it’s not really time yet, my thesis topic is floating around in my brain. I’m thinking about it all the time now, ways to spin it and make it as original and compelling, both for myself and any prospective audience, as I possibly can. We’ll see what I come up with. Nothing I can possibly share just yet.

Is it Friday afternoon yet? No? Damn!

My new sewing machine is here!!

It’s kind of a misnomer to call it “my new sewing machine” since I never had an old sewing machine, but it’s new and it’s mine, so it works. It came on Thursday night. I was gone all day Thursday with training and orientations at the school, so Matt agreed to stay up and wait for it to be delivered.  The poor guy had only had about 2 hours of sleep but still said he’d stay awake until it came.  He waited and waited, but it never did come. When I got in about 7:30 p.m. to find a very sleep, not terribly happy hubby telling me that it didn’t come, I checked the tracking which said it was out for delivery.  Poor guy seemed genuinely concerned that I’d be upset, which I was. Then, not ten minutes after I walked through the door, here comes a knock. It’s FedEx delivering my package from Amazon.  Matt like to pull his hair out, but we were both glad it got here.

So, I unpackaged it, but I’ve not had a chance to use it yet. I only paid about $100 and I got the machine, a plastic hard case, and a pack of 10 plastic bobbins, which aren’t here yet.  I want to make something, but I also want to do it right, so I’m waiting until I have time.  It’s not been easy, let me tell you!  So here it is…

Isn’t it pretty?! I had more meetings on Friday, so afterward I headed over to Melanie’s and we went to Wal-Mart. I got scissors and all of the stuff I’ll need to get started.  I also got these three patterns…

I’m going to attempt the bag first! Not the messenger bag, but the other one (bottom left/top right).  I think in the long run, it’ll be the more simple of the two because it doesn’t require quilted fabrics.  With my experience being limited, I’m going to start with something a bit simpler. I got this really amazing fabric to make the bag…

The brown fabric with teal circles is going to be the outside of the bag, while the teal fabric will be the lining.  I considered brown lining, but I just love the way the teal looks!!  The brown fabric is actually a light corduroy, so I got some heavier weight needles because I’ve been assured that this fabric is hefty and will break the regular needles.

Unfortunately, though I have everything I need to get started, I can’t actually start until next weekend. School’s starting back tomorrow (August 30th) and I have both my classes and my the basic writing for my assistantship to attend during the week.  I have to get text books, order a new stove, go to work and study. So, sewing will have to wait until I have a free moment, which won’t come until the weekend. Melanie and I are going to get together and have a sewing party, wherein she holds my hand *ehh hmm* offers me guidance through the process. She’ll probably get a heck of a lot more sewing done than I will, but I’m glad I have here here to help me when I get stuck.  I’m really looking forward to it.

In the mean time, I’ve been hunting down apron patterns online because I really want to make some vintage aprons. Turns out you can get upwards of 50 different apron patterns on the web, for free.  Many of them aren’t actually patterns, but rather are just instructions and measurements, but I think I could follow simple instructions… maybe.

More pictures coming when that fabric is actually a bag, and not just fabric.  By the time I get good at sewing, y’all are going to be so tired of hearing about sewing and my sewing projects.