What’s good gang!

So this assignment lowkey almost snatched the joy outta me… there were way too many times I was fighting for my life just trying to get the dang sewing machines to cooperate. I swear, I’ve become a full-blown pro at troubleshooting these machines just from sheer repetition—but hey, still some valuable lessons learned along the way.

I started by cutting out my apron, making sure it was the right length and width for me. Couldn’t find fabric that was both long and wide enough for my tall self, so I had to sacrifice some width to get the length right. I followed the guide and made all my cuts for the apron and the straps. Then came pinning the fabric, so I could stitch in a straight line without it shifting everywhere. Of course, there weren’t enough pins around, so I had to improvise with needles—which actually worked just fine. Once everything was prepped, that’s when the real chaos began.

I started with the machine at the BIOE 555 table and was STRUGGLING because we learned on a completely different model. Thank god for YouTube coming in clutch—I followed along with a tutorial and finally got the machine set up. I ran a test with practice fabric but kept getting error after error. I thought, okay maybe it’s just this one machine, so I bounced to the one near the printers. Spoiler: I ended up playing musical chairs with sewing machines all over the lab and none of them wanted to work with me that day. So I dipped and came back another day… still cursed, but I at least managed to sew the bottom hem of my apron.

I came back two more times—TWO—and still no luck. That’s when I finally went to tutorials with Paige. She ended up being my emotional support human. She didn’t even know how to help me troubleshoot at that point—said I was more experienced with the machines than her just from all the time I’d spent suffering. ://///// But somehow her presence must’ve calmed the chaos, because I was finally able to finish sewing my apron. And THANK GOD, because I was this close to emailing Wettergreen like, “This girl really tried her hardest :(”

I wanted to do more with the apron design, but by the time I finished… I had nothing left in the tank. RIP. So this is the best y’all gonna get. 😛

Aight, peace—and see y’all in the next one!