Do you sew? I sew, and thankfully my mother is an expert seamstress who has taught me sewing skills as I grew up. My mom has sewn since she was 5 or 6, encouraged by her mom and grandmother.
My mom owned and operated a successful local interior design studio for many years that sold custom draperies and window treatments. It was a lot of work for my mom sewing all the draperies and window treatments. I remember a lot of long hours for her in her workroom. She has since retired and sold the business and is now sewing wonderfully funky clothing made from recycled materials. You can find out more about her business, Funky Threadz here and also on the Funky Threadz Facebook page.
Wonderful sweater coat, made by Funky Threadz using recycled materials.
Honestly I feel like my sewing skills are mediocre when compared to my mom’s, but I do love to sew. I own two sewing machines, a Singer straight stitch machine and a Juki serger. I big heart love my serger! If you have never used one you don’t know what you are missing. I should warn you though that threading this machine can be rather tricky and when I started to use my serger it was very intimidating. You have to “be friends” with this machine, when things are going well it is a dream to create with. Now that I have been using it for a few years I am very comfortable with the serger sewing machine.
This is the Juki MO644D serger I own; I bought mine from Amazon:
I used it to make the fun Mermaid Tail blanket and Shark Tail blanket gifts for Christmas using fleece. Both of these patterns are from Made for Mermaids (the shark tail blanket pattern is free!).
I also used it this weekend to make four pair of super soft cuddly Maxaloon pants for our great nephew. I made him 4 pair last week and his mommy loved them so over the weekend I hit JoAnn Fabrics where they had their nice anti-pill fleece on sale for $3.90 a yard. Since the little cherub is in newborn to 3 month size I only needed 10 inches to make the pants. I was able to mix and match some of the patterns for contrasting banding. (The grey I had at home). I bought four 12 inch pieces (I went with 12″ but could have gotten away with 10″) at $1.29 each. The total price for the fabric was just over $5 pre-tax.
These are the finished products:
For these pants I bought the Maxaloons pattern from Max and Meena. They are pretty simple to sew up and you can use a serger or straight stitch machine. You can use knit fabric or fleece; I went with the fleece because it is Winter and it is chilly here in Michigan.
What is lovely about both of these companies is that you can buy the pattern online and print it at home! So convenient and perfect if you, like me, live in a rural area with no where to shop for sewing patterns without making a 30 mile journey.
I don’t usually share posts about sewing, but I am doing more and more of it and thought some of you may find it interesting. If you sew, let me know!
