Morrgan's Great Sewing Adventures, part 1

You may remember that I recently obtained a sewing machine. The first practise session after that previous post didn't go all that well. I spent most of it wondering why everything looked pretty on top, like this...


...while below it was a total mess, like this:


The machine didn't come with a manual, used as it was, so it took half an hour of fiddling with settings, running to the computer to google various search terms (it didn't help that I had forgotten most sewing machine terminology), and running back to the sewing machine to test something new, etc. In the end I was able to find the manual online and it turned out the problem was a poorly threaded machine. Yay, learned something new! Not-so-yay, I wasted all my practise time on figuring this out.

A few days ago I got the chance to try again. As it's been 15 or so years since I last did any sewing, I decided to start with a simple project: a fabric storage box for my yarns. A simple box shape, straight seams only, small and quick to finish - seemed perfect. After all, how hard could it be?

Well, pretty darn hard, it turns out! I haven't used ready-made patterns for 15 years either, so I just calculated some suitable rectangle shapes to sew together into a box. I will not tell you how I did it, because it was probably the silliest way to make a box, ever. For one, I added too little seam allovance. Second, I hadn't quite realized that sewing corners isn't all that straight-forward:


However, after much head-scratching, pondering, unraveling and resewing, I managed to get something vaguely box-shaped together!

So yes, it ended up a bit narrower than planned and yes, the corners are - ahem - interesting, but at least it does its job. And on the plus side, I still know how to sew a pretty straight seam.

I also put together a small list of a few things I need before the next project:

• Sewing thread: This box ended up being sewn with three different colours of thread, because I only had snippets of thread around and had forgotten to buy more. Oops.


• Fabric scissors: The all-round scissors I have are so blunt it's not even funny. They'll stay that way too, for they're used for all kinds of cutting. Best to have a separate pair just for this, methinks.


• A nice and simple fabric box pattern: Any suggestions?