sewing fail

I have a job interview! (yay)

So, by way of procrastinating, I am spending the morning sewing, in my jammies.

I found this tutorial online and thought I would give it a try.  Here is what their finished product looks like:

Super cute, right?

Well, mine didn't turn out this cute.  I learned some lessons along the way, so here goes.

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I made my pattern pieces as specified:

 Lesson I: measure on a flat surface, pin your pattern to your fabric and cut as accurately as possible.  I am pretty good at trying to skip steps, so at least I know for next time, right?  I'm sure it also makes cutting pieces easier if you use a rotary cutter (if you're lucky enough to have one.)

So then I cut out my fabrics:

 and ironed:

 If you don't have an ironing board, you can just use a flat surface (in my case, a wooden, folding TV tray) and cover it with a nice, thick towel.
Pressing out my pretty fabric:

 Iron down your raw edges, too.  Fold, pin, iron.  Mine ended up being flipped over about 1/2 an inch.  Leads me back to Lesson I to cut straight and accurate.  I think I folded down too much and it made my pieces uneven.

Line up your fabric as shown above.  Take your largest lining piece and layer your remaining lining fabrics on top from largest to smallest and pin as shown to keep the pockets in place:

 Okay, now fold your fabric over like this matching up the edges; this is an "action shot" of me folding, yours should match up at the edges:

Then iron so that you have a crease:

See the crease in the picture above? Great.  Now stitch down that line across your bottom 3 strips of fabric to anchor the pockets.  You should now have 6 different pockets (woo).

Okay, here is Lesson II: proper thread and bobbin tension:

See the bottom and how the thread is all wiggly?  The bobbin tension was too loose.  I tightened the bobbin tension for the middle pocket and there is an improvement, but it still isn't perfect.  The top pocket has the cleanest stitches, but still isn't perfect.  I'm not necessarily new to sewing, but I haven't done much sewing since home-ec and I'm still learning all the ins-and-outs of my machine and the stitches and the tensions and so on.  Any tips anyone cares to share, please send them here. I've got a lot to learn!

This tutorial even has a cute little ribbon loop to hold a pen.  Here I go, trying to make that loop!

You need 2.5" of ribbon; they used grosgrain, but I just used some double fold bias tape.

Measure, cut, fold, pin, stitch... leads us to...

Lesson III: Don't slapdash this crap together, for the love of Pete.  Here, you should just baste this down, right at the edges.  See how my loop is waaay over the edge? That's bad.  But we'll talk about why it's bad later on. 

Now that you have your pockets stitched down, your pen loop stitched down, you can follow Valerie's instructions in the original tutorial to add a button and loop to the outside of the pocket book to hold it shut securely.  This sounded too fiddly to me, so I figured I would just skip it, and, if need be, I could always sew on a button with a loop of elastic thread or something.

Anyway, the next step is to take your pockets and pin them to the outer fabric with right sides together.

 

I lined mine up as best I could, but if you look at the picture above, you can see that my edges are sloppy!

Pin edges and mark to leave a 3"-4" opening to flip your pocketbook right-side out.

Lesson IV: Follow the damn directions.  Don't change it as you go, don't read it and think, "Oh, I've got the basic idea of this, I'll just wing it, it will be fine," because it never is and I do this *every time* - eye roll.

Then turn it....

 Remember when I said we would talk about my failed pen loop later? Check out the picture below:

See how little the loop is? How can anyone fit a pen in there?? Sheesh!

I sewed my piece shut...

 Voila, pocketbook:

An ugly little pocket book, but a good start, I think.

It works to hold all my goodies, and it looks cute closed, but it could still use some improving upon:

For some reason, blogger keeps rotating this picture. Bleh.

Let's recap my lessons:

Lesson I: Measure and cut accurately.  Make a pattern piece out of notebook paper or other paper and pin it down to your fabric.  Use sharp scissors, too.  Pinking shears would have been ideal because my fabric was fraying A LOT.

Lesson II: Proper thread and bobbin tension for the stitch you're using.  I have some internet searching to do to figure out the best stitches for each tension and so on.

Lesson III: Don't rush.  Take your time.  Make sure things line up, pin, and then measure again to ensure accuracy.  Fast is slow and slow is fast.

Lesson IV: Follow directions.  Before you start any project, read the instructions thoroughly, make a list of supplies, assemble your tools and re-read the instructions (or tutorial) again.  Keep the instructions handy and refer to them as you follow along.

Lesson V: (Which I didn't mention anywhere else in my tutorial...) Make sure that you have all the correct items.  Sure, using a loop of bias tape instead of grosgrain ribbon didn't make my stitching lines all wonky and make my fabric scraps uneven, but not having fusible interfacing has made my pocket book flimsy.  Even though the pockets hold my cards (and school pictures, etc) just fine, they don't have a lot of stability and it makes me feel like my stuff could just fall out.

Back to the drawing board for this one...
and it's time for me to have a shower and get ready for that interview...