During the Covid lockdown, I rediscovered sewing and how much I like doing it. I began by making a couple of tote bag sorts of purses out of cut-up shirts, lined with old cotton scraps. I loved the idea of using up old, retired clothes and remaking them into something I’ll actually use.

Lately I’m trying to sew gifts for family birthdays, but everything I make takes so much more time than I thought it would. When you wing it, using no pattern and not enough of a plan, even a basic apron is ridiculously complicated for me. My sewing machine is a cheap one and can’t get through denim very well at all, or multiple layers of some other fabrics, so my reversible aprons now are made by putting the two layers together, and sewing either twill tape or bias tape all around the outer edge.

Everybody gets an apron, first. Most of the women’s aprons are made from vintage tablecloths and sheets, and the men’s are denim of various kinds. I hate working with denim, generally, although I like the fabric itself. The one I am finishing now is so heavy it feels like it would provide protection against a nuclear blast. Trying not to buy any more fabric, except for some denim. Some of that, too, will be old jeans.

I (idiot) realized the trick to doing some of the hard sewing bits: Do hand basting! first pin it, then hand baste with great big Frankenstein stitches I’ll remove later. Then I can pull all the pins out and it’ll lie smooth for the finished sewing.

Doing it carefully uses more thread than I ever have before. Of course I never used to care about finishing seams. I found out with my 2nd apron/smock that if you don’t finish denim seams, you’ll be sorry as soon as you wash it again.

My first attempt at pot holders was hilarious. I was trying to make a flat rectangular kind, imitating a favorite pot holder in my kitchen, and wanted to enlarge the size a bit… but I made it way too big, looking stupid. The edging was all hand-sewn because I hadn’t thought yet about the idea of hand basting, then machine stitching the bias tape. I should have trimmed it down and centered the image on the front, too. It’s constructed carefully, however, using all-cotton fabric and cotton batting, I even quilted the inner layers a little. So it’s sturdy, but really stupid. I will shame my sister into accepting it anyway. It matches the apron I gave her, ha ha ha.

(Hmm. My browser is behaving differently with this blog. I couldn't add the image to the post. I'll try in a separate post.)