Sew Thinky Thursday

There are a few blogs I read regularly - like, every time they post, I'm reading. Sew Sweetness is one of them. Sara is an inspiration!  Today she put out the word for a new link party at Mommy's Nap Time called Sew Thinky Thursday.  Each Thursday, there will be a sewing/quilting question to write about.  I LIKE this and I'll tell you why!  I do the link parties. I do.  Not as much as I used to, but I do them.  But I get a little tired of having to "compete" with my photos to get noticed.  It's tiring and time consuming, and I don't always (er...ever?) have awesome photos to post of my projects.  So THIS...is something I can do without "feeling the pressure."  

The question of the week is...
When did you start sewing? Tell us a bit about your sewing history. When did you realize you were really hooked? 

I grew up with a mom who sewed all the time.  She made a lot of our clothes as little kids, she made our family of 4 some matching Christmas outfits one year (picture red plaid in the 80's!), she made one of my prom dresses, which was awesome btw...she could whip anything up at pretty much a moment's notice.  She actually had a craft business for many years, where she would work all year sewing things, and go to about a million craft shows each fall and make a boatload selling her things.  

So you would THINK that obviously, that's how I learned to sew!  Wrong!  I mean, I think I owe big thanks to my mom for giving me the following: my "sewing gene," and my first two sewing machines.  Those things alone are huge.  Huge!  And some help over the phone here and there.  But as far as how I learned...I pretty much taught myself.  

My first project was a valance for my bedroom in college.  I made it out of red ticking on the Green Kenmore, my first machine.  I loved the smell of that machine.  I had very little clue what to do with it, but I knew how to sew a straight line!   So on & off, when I had something I wanted to sew, I'd do it ONLY if I only had to sew straight lines.  No clothing, no complicated-looking things.  Basically, pillowcases and straight-line curtains.  TRY to contain your excitement!  

Fast-forward about a decade after college, into married life.  Still occasionally sewing curtains and pillowcases.  Woo-woo.  I wanted to sew more interesting things, but was afraid to.  Then one day I realized that if I messed something up...who cares?  What's to be afraid of?  So I started to branch out.

This was one of the first things I made:

That's my girl in her preschool graduation dress.  4-5 years ago?

I was so proud of this dress.  It did not look pretty on the inside, and there were some problems with the outside, come to think of it, but I was so proud because 1. I actually did ruffles, and 2.SHE loved it!  And it went on from there...

Possibly my favorite picture EVER

OK I have to stop myself!  It's fun to go through all my picasa pictures and see all these things, some of them from a long time ago it seems!  These are actually just a few things that I've really liked from the past several years.  

This year I am branching out a little more.  In addition to learning to quilt, I have also decided that I'm going to "up" the level of my sewing - I want it to be a lot more finished-looking, and I want to use nicer fabrics in projects to come.  SO looking forward to that!