I started sewing just after Jill was born.  My mother had given me a sewing machine for Christmas and I found time to sew throughout the day as Jill took naps.  Making crib sheets and warm winter swaddles was both entertaining and rewarding.  A friend of mine commented that as a stay at home mom it is really nice to take some time to create something permanent that you can point to as real evidence of your effort.  Dishes, laundry and dirty diapers are all cyclical.  You do the dishes only to find more in the sink a few hours later.  There is a real pride that comes from sitting down at my machine and creating somehting for my daughter. Just over a year later Jill doesn't sleep quite as much; and I find it is much harder to get to the sewing machine.  Be that as it may, my enjoyment of this hobby will not allow me to stop.

I am extremely lucky in that I have an entire room dedicated to sewing right now.  Whenever my husband and I decide to add to our family I'm going to have to figure out a new situation, but for now I get to go crazy.  It's great because I can make a huge mess in there and store all of my fabric, then close the door on the mayhem.  I have stockpiled a large store of supplies having gone nuts at several red tag apparel clearance sales at Jo-ann fabrics and then trips to the local Good Will.  I am constantly needing to organize that space just to remember what I have in there.  It was very easy for me to purchase supplies for various projects but now I have to actually carry through.  I would suggest to other beginners to pace yourself.  No matter how good the deal is for sewing supplies don't buy more than you can handle.  I think having up to five projects ready to go is great.  By the time you are finished with those projects there will almost definitely be another great sale going on.  You can see in the pics that I have too much fabric.  

As I've delved deeper and deeper into the world of sewing I've learned many many tricks that I wish I had known earlier.  Money has been spent and projects have failed for no reason other than I'm a nit of a clueless bubblehead.  I am finally starting to get the knack for it (or at least I hope I am).  Pinterest has provided a wealth of ideas and tutorials which I've been learning from.  My only problem is that I think the best teacher for a beginner sometimes is another beginner.  Other sewers make assumptions that you already know certain things about sewing.   I am definitely still a beginner, but I am planning to write this blog from that perspective openly.  I believe that my experiences as a beginner will be helpful.  So please forgive the fact that I haven't taken any formal training, and that my methods are probably not the best way of doing things (or in many cases my methods might be flat out wrong).  I will be learning as I go, and the challenges I face will be plentiful, but mayhaps that will be entertaining for others if not enlightening.