Howdy, this is my blog post about my first ENGI 210 project!!! It was a project to sew our own apron and I had a lot of fun through the entire prosses. I knew how to sew before this class, but I have not practiced in a couple years, I did not feel like I had a good enough reason to, and this was a fantastic way for me to get back into it.

The first step of the project was to create a pattern. I did this by taking dimensions of my collar bone, bust, waste, and hips. I do not like cutting material when I do not have to because I like the idea of being able to repurpose it in the future, if need be, so I made my pattern fit my upper body but allowed it to be as wide and long as possible otherwise. Once I felt the sizing was correct for half of the design, I folded the paper and copied it onto the other side so that it could be as symmetrical as possible. After this, I traced with chalk and cut the fabric.

 

After cutting out the material, it was time to fold the edges and sew the straps and pocket on. During this prosses, it felt fairly strait forward, but it was the most exciting part of the project because I started to remember a lot of little things about hand and machine sewing that I had forgotten about. I am going to mainly talk about what I have forgotten because I do not want to again and I hope it can possibly help other people facing some difficulties with sewing.

 

 

The first thing is how to put together the bobbin thread and its holder.

For putting the 3 pieces of the bobbin holder into the machine, I was taught “little, big, bobbin”. When you take out all the pieces of the bobbin holder, there are 4 parts. A piece of metal shaped in a crescent moon with a little rod sticking out from it (“little”), a large ring with a notch at the top of its front side (“big”), the spool with tread, and the bobbin case (because I first put the spool in the bobbin case, I refer to the two together as “bobbin”).

 

 

 

Put the bobbin thread into the bobbin thread holder with the string going clockwise.

  

Then pull it up and to the left, it will slide into a little notch where you will then be able to pull it back so that the string goes through a little ovel opening on the shell of the case.

 

When looking under the machine, you will see a piece of metal shaped like a half circle (this piece is secured to the machine so it should never come out naturally), the “little” half crescent piece will go in opposite of this piece with the rod in the center of the half crescent sticking out towards you.

    

Next, put in the “big” piece, this is the circle with the weird little triangle notch in it. The notch goes upwards. It can be a little finicky trying to get the ring on with out the half moon part falling out but you get used to it with practice.

  

After this, flip the black holders to hold it all together and now you can put the actual bobbin case in.

The rod from the little half crescent piece will still be stinking out, put the bobbin on that with the arm of the bobbin case fitting into the notch in the big ring.

Lift the little never on the bobbin holder and push in to lock it in place.

Another tip to remember is to always have a tail coming from the top thread that extends at least to the end of the machine platform, I forget to do this about every other time I sew and it’s the reason 9/10 times the top thread comes undone when you start sewing. That and the fact that the tread needs to go under the presser foot. Another reason the thread might be snapping or the machine is jamming is that the tread might be going through the needle in the wrong direction or is twisted on the needle. For the Singer and Brother machines, the thread should go front to back and for the new JUKI machine, it should go left to right.

  

 

The last thing I want to talk about is putting hand needles in pin cushion. If you are going to put a needle into a cushion, leave 1-2 inches of thread on the needle. Without it, a lot of the time, they will slide all the way into the cushion, and it is annoying/painful to try and get them out. I needed a hand needle and so I felt around the heart cushion and ended up pulling out 12 needles.

While sewing my edges, I tried using a different press foot to help with the process and it was a very interesting experience. I only used it on three edges, but it sped up the sewing a lot. I definitely need to practice with it more though because I did not get 100% even spacing but I was still satisfied with my edges for my first time trying this method.

After finishing my edges, I box stitched on my straps, I have not box stitched before, but I think it went alright. However, I made the mistake several times of not pressing the reverse lever all the way down and accidentally making a couple forward stiches at the corners of the boxes.

A few fun things I added to the apron were a clip at the waste so that I do not have to tie the apron every time I but it on, a magnet in the next strap because I dislike having to either tie or completely loosen a strap to get it over my head, and a few felt patches because I thought they would be cute.

      

Overall, I had a lot of fun sewing for this project and I am trying to think of more casual ideas that I can do to still practice and improve my sewing abilities!

Price break down:

Material at $10 for 3 yards = $10

10 hours at $10 an hour = $100

Miscellaneous items = $10

Total = $120