Growing up, I loved to sew. I spent many summers at my grandmother’s house, making doll clothes and eventually, people clothes for myself and my sisters. When I was about 14, I made an entire silk-satin floor-length prom dress for my 17-year-old stepsister’s best friend. It took me months of sewing by hand, since I did not own a sewing machine. A few years later, I made my own homecoming dress out of a dark silvery polyester satin, also painstakingly cut and constructed by hand. Through the years since then, I have modified many store-bought items of clothing to fit my very short, plus-sized body (and my bizarrely huge upper arms– even plus-sized clothing at or above my size rarely fit me in the biceps if the item is meant to be close-fitting there). One year for a Christmas present, I spent the better part of six months designing, constructing, and quilting a throw-sized quilt for my stepmother.  I would consider myself a moderately skilled intermediate sewer.

However, I have rarely used a sewing machine. I used my grandmother’s 50+ year-old machine a bit when I was younger, but I always gravitated to the more peaceful rhythm of hand-sewing (which probably explains my current knitting obsession, too). A couple years ago, I bought a sewing machine on little more than a whim when I stumbled across it, on deep-discount at a Target. I used it once or twice since then, and in the process misplaced the manual *doh* and completely lost all knowledge of how to put the bobbin back in the machine so the stupid thing would work.

Lately I’ve been wanting to get my hands dirty with some sewing projects; partially for necessity and partially for fun. I am definitely going to spend some time this weekend asking the internet to help me re-learn how to thread my stupid machine, and do a few hems on some items that have been laying about giving me the hairy eyeball. Also, I found this:

Make Your Own Dress Form

Seriously. How awesome is that? I am so doing that. I will wait ’til the hubs gets home, I suppose, since I need someone to help me with the duct-taping. Mine, however, will extend to at least my elbows so as to accomodate my Popeye arms. I swear, I modify more clothing to work around those stupid things than even hems, and I’m 5′1″!

I love, love, love homemade quilts and hope to get into that more thoroughly once I have done some work bringing my machine-sewing skills up to the par with my hand-sewing skills. The piecing, at least, is sooooooo tedious without a machine. If any part of a quilt should be done by hand, its that part. I can see the appeal of doing all the quilting by hand, though.

Also, I know this is crazy, but I have been entertaining ideas of getting into the cloth-diapering craze as a seller. They are all the rage these days, and I have found plenty of online resources with tutorials on how to make them, recommendations on the appropriate fabrics and notions, and I think its a market that I could really succeed in. Also, knitted “soakers” (they don’t get soaked, they are actually water-resistant covers that go over the absorbant cloth diapers) are also very popular and I could do both! Sew diapers and knit soakers. Way fun. And this seems like a great place to start for practice:

Fern and Faerie Tutorial

I have so much old, abused clothing lying about its embarassing. I could cut ‘em up for practice both with diaper construction and with sewing machine use without nary a qualm. And maybe in a few months, once I get good, I could invest in some “real” cloth-diapering materials, and set up a system whereby I give my prototypes out for free to parents who are willing to exchange their feedback for free diapers, feedback I will then use to improve my patterns and techniques. Down the line, in as little as a year, I think I could incorporate, design a logo for my biz, and have an Etsy storefront up and running. I am not envisioning it as a career, but as a fun diversion to (hopefully) at least not lose money doing. And an excuse to buy more yarn and fabric to play with.