Love/Hate Relationships

As I journey through my day to days, I often find myself feeling love/hate relationships with lots of things. The one that comes to mind today is my sewing machine. First of all, I HATE it because it is a cheap machine that I bought several years ago and I continually have problems with it. Today for example, as I was changing the sheets on our bed, I decided to make a quick alteration to our pillowcases. It should've taken 10 minutes at the most - but my machine had a different idea. My thread kept breaking mid sew and I had to stop, re thread and start again only to have it happen again a few inches later. I also hate the fact that I don't have a dedicated sewing area in my house. I end up hauling the machine upstairs to work on projects at my kitchen table, which creates a huge mess and invites trouble from the little people living in my house who think it's fun to push the peddle when I'm not looking and sprinkle pins throughout the house (you'll have to ask Quinn about helping me find pins... with his feet!)

Now I LOVE my sewing machine for what it represents. Every fall, I get this little urge to browse through the pattern section at the fabric store and find the perfect Halloween costumes for my girls. Even after all the frustrations of dealing with my inferior machine, agonizing over zippers (don't even get me started on zippers - ugh!), and unpicking and resewing countless mistakes, I find an unexplainable satisfaction from completing the project. I think part of it comes from my love of solving puzzles. It's the excitement of starting with simple materials and putting together these fabric pieces in just the right way until you end up with an actual article of clothing. Now, don't even think of asking me to hem your pants, I'm really not that great of a seamstress, but it is something I enjoy when my machine is working well.

My latest project that is still just in the idea stage is to make matching nightgowns for the girls for Christmas. They all love wearing nightgowns, but it's nearly impossible to find any out there that aren't smeared with Bratz or Sponge Bob all across the front of them. I found this really old fashioned style pattern with lace trim and ruffles at the hem and sleeves - it reminds me of Little House on the Prairie. Realistically, it will be a miracle if I could complete just one, let alone all four, but I'm still hopeful that they'll be done in time to open on Christmas Eve. Wish me luck!!