Both my mother and my aunt tried to teach me to sew when I was a preteen. My aunt even sent me to a Joann Fabrics class when I stayed with her and my uncle one summer. They all were a disaster. Every time I used my mother’s old Bernina sewing machine, I jammed the bobbin thread. Every. Time. To this day, I’m not sure what was happening unless I just tried to go too fast. And the fabric class? We made a t-shirt. Who in their right mind has a beginner project with stretch-knit fabric? What fabric did I pick? Stripes. Ugh. As I recall my sleeves were uneven and the sewing was sloppy. I think I even wore it a couple of times, but then I’m not sure what happened to it. My guess is it magically “disappeared” into a charity box.
As a result of these wonderful attempts, I really didn’t pursue sewing as a craft. I’d see cute sewing ideas but either by-pass them or send hints to my mother.
Until I had a child. I started seeing all these wonderful, adorable crafty ideas … and they needed sewing. Hand sewing I could probably handle (although not the greatest at even stitches there either). My wish list was getting longer, Mom wasn’t coming through fast enough (sorry Mom 🙂 !), so I decided I needed to try again.
This was my latest attempt – a set of 5 coasters. They were based loosely on this tutorial from Handmade by Hilani (link no longer found) and another by Make-It Love-It. Just don’t look too closely as the stitches aren’t the greatest, some of the sides are wonky and no two look alike. But, eh. It was fun to make them. I used some scrap material I received from my mother-in-law (left over from making baby blankets) and they are lined with felt. I don’t have any scrap fleece and I couldn’t remember where my interfacing is (if I have some) – but I figured felt would be great to help make it water resistant and add padding. Why five? Well, because that’s the number of squares I could cut out from this fabric. It seemed a shame to leave just a little bit left.
Feel free to critique away!
Thanks for sharing this post with us. I am little bit interested to get more information about learning-to-sew-coasters. I like to share my opinion on learning-to-sew-coasters.Different machines come with different stitches. The basic machines may only have a few stitches, which if all you are going to be doing is mending, a few is all you need.