I’ve been meaning to write up a post every few days detailing my sewing adventures, but due to lack of time I’ve had to stop in the middle of working on things quite often and haven’t had much to show off.

As of this moment I have taken in my BDU pants, added the wide belt loops, taken in Chris’s light grey tank, sewn the jacket ‘vest’ and lining of Chris’s duty blues jacket, and put together the chest pocket for the jacket. So far, the pocket has been the biggest pain in the ass.

The first thing I worked on was Chris’s grey undertank. Let me tell you, finding a plain light grey (not HEATHER) sleeveless shirt with no logos on it is nearly impossible. I was considering trying to make it myself, because it really shouldn’t be that hard, but I couldn’t fabric for it, either! After much searching online, I finally found a tank (Roundtree & Yorke Jersey Muscle Tee) and fortunately it was in stock at Dilliard’s. Unfortunately, it seems to be getting discontinued, so their supply was limited. I had to get a medium, when I needed a small, so my first real sewing job was to take it in. It’s not perfect, but I don’t think anyone will notice.

I found my BDU pants (brand: Tru-Spec) at an army store in Nashville. I had to get a medium short (the waist of the small size was extremely tight on me), and it was super baggy, so I had to take the pants in as well. I might take them in a bit more if I have time, as they’re still a little baggy. I think they are a little too dark, but oh well. If I ever decide to do the jacket as well, I’ll probably have to redo the pants as I’ll mostly likely have to buy them with the jacket in a set.

For the belt loops, I found a pair of pants at Goodwill the same color as the BDUs and sacrificed them for the fabric. After sewing them on, I realized they are not the same exact color, but hopefully this won’t be too noticeable in most lighting.

It’s pretty noticeable with the flash on… ack. :(

They’re also not sewn evenly on the pants, but that’s more the pants’ fault than mine. Whatever.

I was going to continue writing about the other things I’ve worked on, but this post is already much too long! I’ll save the rest for another post, maybe tomorrow or Friday.

Every time I’ve ever used a sewing machine, I’ve hated it. Although in my mind being able to sew sounded very nice, my fear of the sewing machine kept me from pursuing the hobby.

After buying tickets for Dragon*Con and deciding to make costumes, I resolved to learn how to sew so that I could make some well-made costumes. I signed up for Sewing 101 at JoAnn and brought along my crappy little portable machine. Although the class was informative and helped to lessen my fear of sewing machines, I still wasn’t too terribly keen about using one. The machine I had, which couldn’t have cost more than $30, had no fancy features, only two stitches, and sounded like a lawnmower (much to my chagrin during the class—the whole store could probably hear it!).

I asked for a sewing machine for my birthday, because I knew I’d never be serious about it or be able to really do anything too fancy with the piece of shit I had. Chris ended up buying me a Brother CS-6000i, which has 60 stitch patterns, speed control (!), and some other nice fancy features.

I finally took it out of the box last week and tried a couple of practice runs. Very nice, but I spent about 10 minutes using it, so I didn’t really get a feel for it.

On Monday I pulled it back out of the box and sat down to get some real work down. Much to my surprise, I totally love it.

I’ve come to realize that if you have a good machine, then sewing can be fantastic. The three machines I’ve used in the past were all horrible. The portable one is just not sophisticated enough to do any serious sewing, and the two others were old and clunky, not to mention missing all the extra parts and instructions. The lack of speed control was probably the worst part, so I absolutely love the speed control on my new machine.

I thought I’d get frustrated with sewing, but I actually felt very relaxed for the five hours or so I used the machine on Monday. It’s a bit of a challenge, figuring out how to put the pieces together and planning out what I need to do, but it’s a challenge I really enjoy.

I do feel pressured to get these costumes done, since I’ve got less than two months and am still learning how to sew, but I’m feeling a lot more optimistic about it now.

I’m also pretty excited about the prospect of Chris moving his stuff into the guest bedroom and me getting this room all to myself. A crafting room/office all to myself! I definitely need my own space, and can’t wait to get things moved.

Here’s the first step toward making this room mine—the (finally) completed door desk!

This room is a total mess right now, and I hate how bare the walls are, but hopefully that will be rectified soon!