What's an Easy Project for a Sewing Machine Beginner to Do?
Thanks ^_^
I can sew a straightish line :D
Plus I made a little pillow with a pocket and a coin purse flappy thing... and now I'm attempting a teeny handbag... I got my machine Saturday but I was trying to maybe see if I wasn't trying to get ahead of myself or if I'm doing okay by challenges...
a problem I also have the problem with my thread trying to tangle up or fly out of the needle.... Like if I'm sewing along(straightly), it'll somehow snag and then make me crooked ;_;
thanks for all the suggestions so far ^_^
EDITED TO ADD: Ok, here are a couple of exercises I make my beginners do:
1) Unthread the machine, but leave the needle in. Grab a piece of paper (junk mail does fine) and set up for a straight stitch, longish length. Put the paper under the presser foot, with the edge of the paper at the 5/8" mark. Watching the edge of the paper (not the needle!), sew to the corner, leave the needle down, raise the presser foot, turn the paper 90 degrees, and continue to sew at 5/8". Don't watch the needle, watch the edge of the paper. The needle knows what it's doing (when you start sewing more complex stitches, you'll wind up pulling the fabric around and destroying your precision if you're watching the needle.) When you're happy sewing around corners and straight lines, repeat the exercise with a curved shape you've cut out of paper.
Here's the kicker for the exercise: steer the paper using only
your right and left index fingers. Many beginners start the bad habit of trying to shove or pull or stop fabric from feeding naturally through the machine, which results in broken needles, possible repairs for the sewing machine, possible injury to you. Fabric will take more than a couple of finger to steer, but it doesn't need a Vulcan Death Grip to get it to behave. Convince yourself now that gentle persuasion works better than brute force.
2) Put in a new needle and thread up again (if you're using spool thread and there's a nick that's supposed to hold the end of the thread when it's not on the machine, put the nick up so the thread doesn't catch (that may be your issue with the thread now). Find yourself a piece of fairly stiff, striped fabric (or a plain fabric you've ruled guidelines on). This time, you're going to line the edge of the presser foot up with the edge of a stripe and sew a line of your first stitch along the length of the stripe. Then move over, line up the edge of the presser foot again, and sew a line of the second stitch. And again, till you've used all the stitches your machine has. Now you've got a sampler of all the stitches that your machine can do. It can be a pincushion, a tool roll, a pillow, a decorative panel for a cover for your new machine, or just line your workbox for easy reference later.
I know both of these exercises seem kind of lame now, but they'll help you develop good control of your machine and make actual sewing much easier.
Oh, and Joan Hawley (Lazy Girl) has some good patterns for fun small projects, with good directions:
http://www.lazygirldesigns.com/bags.php
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How beginnerish are you? Have you learned to sew a straight seam yet? If so, something like a tote bag is easy, and Nancy Restuccia's got good instructions here:
http://www.make-it-easy.com/opentot2.html
More ideas:
http://www.sewing.org/enthusiast/html/e_learntosew.html
http://sewing.about.com/library/blrankbegin.htm
If these aren't suitable, tell us what you've done so far with your machine, and I'm sure we can find something matched to your current skill level.
I often start kids out on something like fleece vests because fleece hides all manner of sewing sins... but that's probably a bit warm for you for this time of year.
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