I finally did it. I sat down with the sewing machine my husband gave me for Christmas... and I even turned it on.
(Go ahead. You can clap, I don't mind.)
I must confess that I have been avoiding this machine a little, even though I asked for it. To be actually, technically correct, though, I did not ask for this particular machine. What I said was, "I think I'd like to finally learn to sew. I think I'd like a simple machine, not too fancy or expensive -- you know, just one I can learn on."
My husband, who has boundless confidence in my ability to learn anything, therefore bought me a fancy computerized Swedish model, which was, well, a lot more than I had been planning on spending. But today the dining room table was reasonably cleared off, and I decided to face my fear.
And this is the part where I have to confess that I haven't been afraid of making crooked seams, of being unable to follow patterns, of not knowing how to piece two seams together... No, my fear is a little more fundamental.
I am terrified of having to thread the machine.
Okay, there, I said it. See, I'm pretty sure I can learn to sew, I mean, if the machine is all set up for me. What I am not so confident is my ability to figure out where all the thread goes, and how to wind bobbins, and - just what are bobbins for anyway?
In any case, while I was rocking Pop this afternoon, I valiantly picked up and read the User's Manual. None of it made any sense, of course. It must be in Swedish, I thought. But no. English. Then the diagrams are in Swedish. Okay, right. Everybody knows that the Swedes use a different numbering system than we do. That must be why these diagrams don't make any sense.
But I persevered. After both babies finally settled down, and Farmerboy had been carried back down the hall and deposited on his bed for a nap yet again, I plugged the machine in, located the ON switch (a victory!), and prayed that the thread which was already threaded for me would not break. (The diagrams still didn't make very much sense even with the machine in front of me.)
See, I have to explain something here, about why I have sewing machine phobia. I once bought one of those mending machines, the kind that Karen E. posted about here? (And I am right there with you, Karen, trust me!) I bought it because Gareth had joined Cub Scouts, and suddenly there were patches to sew. (And at the time, I had not heard of Badge Magic either, which is possibly the coolest invention ever.) Dutifully, I attempted to sew his Tiger badge on with a big needle. And it was really, really hard. And it took a long time. But when I brought home this mending machine and was fiddling around with it, the thread broke.
Because you do not really want to read about all the wrestling and cursing that happened at that point -- let us just say that the mending machine is still in my basement, hopelessly entangled in white thread.
So I sat down to sew today, praying that the thread would not break.
But, of course, it did.
And those Swedish diagrams required the help of my husband and a flashlight in order to decipher them. (Because I tell you, Swedish directions really do not translate into English!) I am happy to report that I now know how to rethread the machine when the thread breaks, how to untangle it from somewhere inside the machine, what a presser foot is and that you actually need to put it down or your stitches will get all tangled up, why you need pins to hold fabric together, and that a sewing machine can actually shove fabric down inside that little space inside the metal doohickey plate thing it sews on, and when it does that, it is not good.
I also sewed a bunch of lines of stitches up and down a couple of pieces of scrap fabric.
See? Progress.
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