When Times Get Tough, the Tough Get Sewing

I grew up with a mother who had some serious sewing skills. She made each one of the Halloween costumes in this here photo:

That's me as Rainbow Brite (with a handmade orange yarn wig!), my younger brother Franklin as a tiger cub, my brother Jason as the most phenomenal E.T. with a glowing orange finger, and my sister Tracey the cheerleader. My Mom (that's her behind me) sewed all of those. Looking at this photo kind of revives the theory that I formulated around the time that this pic was taken: My Mom has magic powers.

Unfortunately the sewing gene skipped a generation. For all of my craftiness, I lack a certain finess when it comes to needles and thread. But, my belt is tightening (money not fat!) and sewing is one of those skills that could be very helpful for the bank account. You know, buy a girl a dress and she has an outfit for one night, teach her to sew and she can make fabulous things inexpensively for many nights. Yeah, something like that.

Where to start? With the basics. I was looking for a good intro to sewing class but if I had the $350 they were charging I'd be knee deep in retail racks right now. So instead I created my own sewing curriculum.

I'm going to Sew U! Built by Wendy designer and '90s guitar strap hero Wendy Mullin has penned a how-to book that covers all of the basics of sewing. It even comes with three simple patterns to get me going. I'll supplement the text with video instruction on YouTube. Then I'll graduate to sewing Built by Wendy's more complex patterns. Perhaps my term project will be a winter coat. Or, a cute as anything shirt.

I'll get to pick out my own fabrics and assuming that the garments hold up, I'll be able to pass down some special items to my future bamabinas that won't have Forever 21 labels in them. Also, this will be a great way to spend my time, not my money.

Get yourself a sewing machine, and let's start our own sewing circle. What do you say?