Sewing a Metro Pillow: My first sewing project

I have NO crafty abilities… I try for my kids, but that is as far as it goes! I had so much fun making the boys Wolf Costumes (NO Sewing required!) that I started getting the sewing “itch”! My goal was to be able to hem pants, sew buttons and maybe make some dress up stuff for the kids so my hubby bought me a sewing machine for Christmas. Ok, ok, I bought myself a sewing machine and my hubby used it as “his gift to me”!!! 

My machine sat there for weeks until my friend Pam found a 101 sewing class for us to take at JoAnns. I wasn’t really sure how me and a sewing class would go together, BUT I thought why not?! I am always down for a fun GNO! 

When you sign up for a class, they give you a list of what you need so we went a few days before and got all of our fabric and other items we needed. I was COMPLETELY clueless, but had a fun time picking out cute fabric for the kids pillow! 

You can bring your own machine or use one they have there, but I would recommend taking your own so you can get use to using it! They will help you thread your bobbin and your needle there which took me some time to do on my own!! We used a pattern and this will tell you step by step what you need to do for the particular pillow you are wanting to make. We used the Kwik Sew K3910 Learn to Sew Metro Pillow Pattern.

The first thing she had us do was to take our pattern (tip: you can iron the pattern first so it lays nice and flat on your fabric) and cut it. 

Next, pin it to your fabric with straight pins and then cut out the fabric! There are instructions on your pattern that shows where to place it on the fabric and where to cut it. Pretty easy, although I cut it in the wrong place, but one thing I learned is that most things can be fixed with your sewing machine or your seam ripper!! 

Once you have all your pieces cut, you start your sewing! I am not going to get into detail here because this was a really tricky pillow and I honestly could not replicate what I did in class! The teacher kept apologizing because she said this should NOT have been a 101 class with how difficult the pattern was! I included some pics of what we did, but you are going to have to take a class for a play by play! Most of the girls (who were more experienced than I was) left before they finished their pillow because we went way over the time allotted for the class! 

I will say that although I can’t replicate this again, I learned a TON at the class.

• I became comfortable with my machine
• I learned how to sew a somewhat straight line :) 
• I know how to thread my bobbin and needle
• I now know that I can iron my pattern so that it lines up more evenly on my fabric
• I learned that you want to sew the fabric inside out so you can’t see the hem lines

Overall, I was super happy with the outcome. You can def see the imperfections up close, but my kids don’t care and they thought it was pretty cool that their mommy made them a pillow. I was pretty proud of myself too :) I started a project from start to finish and it actually looks like a pillow so no complaints here! If you are new to sewing I would highly recommend taking a few sewing classes. They offer 50% off classes all the time so I only paid $20 for a 3 hour class and I learned so many tips and tricks and gained confidence that I just would not have picked up on my own! It also forced me to get my machine out and DO SOMETHING with it! Time is so valuable and sometimes we have to force ourselves to do something for ourselves or commit time to a hobby of our own! 

Next week I am going to blog about my infinity scarf (pic below) I made which was SUPER easy!! That is something I would say to start with as a beginner! No pattern is needed and hardly any cutting! I would save this pillow project for when you are a little more advanced :)