Apologies.

Up until this Friday I was experiencing a constant struggle with threading the bobbin in my sewing machine. My parents had gone away for most of the weekend and my Mom's friend had been asked to take me to go get something to eat. When we got back to the house I asked her to help me take a look at it, I was prepared to show her the tutorial videos, the instruction booklet, everything, in case I had missed something. Upon her request I showed her what I understood of bobbin placement thus far, and 'miraculously' it worked. We joked that it was her presence that caused the process to finally succeed, I honestly just wished there was a way I could strangle a sewing machine.

When she left I started working on a project that my Mom asked me to do. My Mother asked me to create some flags that could be hung to use as a signal system for how out of hand my room was getting. I got to choose the colors and then I went out and got the fabrics standard yadda yadda. I cut out a shape I thought would work, I decided I didn't want to bother with cutting out a triangular pattern, so I just tore out a rectangle. Now understand that though saying I "tore" it out is technically an exaggeration it isn't too far from the truth given the scissors I had to use were my parents kitchen shears.

 I would like to particularly apologize to you dear readers, because I am unused to recording my exploits in general, I managed to completely forget to take a proper number of pictures during my first true adventures in sewing. I do however still have my amazing failure of a finished product.

I used a random chopstick from the drainboard in the kitchen to show the space where I'm supposed to thread a string through it so it'll hang properly from a hook, or whatever my Mother has in mind.

After I finished that first flag I got insanely bored, but wanted to do more sewing. As a result I decided to start working on a plushy pattern I found online. It was a little adventurous for my skill level, but I was determined. So I printed it out on a piece of paper, I plan to make another one so I can out line for you what exactly I did. For now though here's the pattern I used:

I managed to use the machine to sew the two back pieces, and the forehead together (all three pieces shown in black). I also managed to machine sew the two jaw pieces together (the white shape that says X2 on it). By the time I finished that I had a huge mess of loose strings hanging all over the place, so I grabbed a small sewing needle and a bit of pink thread, and sewed the jaw onto the rest of the head by hand. I feel a bit disappointed about that actually. I had so hoped to get it all done by machine until the hole for the stuffing needed to be sewed shut. 

Here's my progress from the inside:

Here's what the head should look like stuffed:

I'm a little worried I might have screwed up the neck a bit. Next time when I go over the project fully I'll just use that as the stuffing hole, it'll be easier to manage that way. I wish I knew how to do that thing where the two loops wrap around each other at the end of the fabric, it would make this so much easier. Unfortunately I feel determined to do it with the standard straight stitch, which is the only stitch I really know how to do at the moment.

I hope to post more photos of other projects I would like to outline and complete for you, for the time being please bear with me as I try to get the hang of both blogging and sewing.