My First Blog Post Ever!

So here I am...my first blog post ever!

This is kind of exciting for me because when it comes to journalling I have lots of experience. I used to write in diaries as a kid for years. It was an addiction. Although I never wrote anything particularly special I gained a lot of pleasure from the experience of just writing my thoughts and such down on paper. Of course, I "grew out of it" eventually and haven't had a diary for quite some years. Life gets busy I guess.

So why a blog and why now? Well, a blog seems like the new way of journalling for lots of people. I know, it's been around for a while, but it takes me time to digest stuff like this okay? In any case, I think I would enjoy the feeling of journalling again, even if it's merely virtual. And who knows...maybe someone else will enjoy it too.

So why am I calling it "Barefoot Sewing and Other Adventures"?

I will explain the "Other Adventures" first. The "Other Adventures" is there simply so I can write about whatever I want in case I happen to write about something other than "Barefoot Sewing".

But "Barefoot Sewing" is my real intention.

So what IS "Barefoot Sewing"?

"Barefoot Sewing" is sewing with no rules.

I grew up taking homec classes like all the other girls as well as learning a few things from my mother, who used to sew most of mine and my twin sister's clothing since, being twins, it was cheaper that way. Because of my upbringing in the sewing world, I grew to hate it. Why? The rules of course! My mother taught me to "tack" things together before actually sewing them. This meant having to hand sew a seam before getting to sew it for real on the sewing machine. And then of course there was the hand sewing of virtually ALL hems...because it would have been "uncouth" (my Mum's term) to have a hem show the stitching. So, more hand sewing. All this hand sewing took the fun out of the precious little time I seemed to get to spend on the sewing machine itself. And then there were the patterns. Yes, I'll admit they're a good way to start, but quite honestly, even MORE rules I wanted to break! So, yes, my mother finished a LOT of homec projects for me during my youth.

So how, you might ask, did I EVER continue to sew? Well, I guess I liked to experiment. I was a bit of a brown noser, so if I was going to experiment, it wasn't going to be with drugs or alcohol. Basically I waited until my mother was away during the summers at her vacation cottage and that was when I opened up her machine and tried some things out for myself. I didn't even know how to thread the damn thing...I had to follow her thread from previous projects through the holes to make sure I threaded it properly. But once I got the hang of it I was okay. And so my real education in sewing began.

No, I didn't try anything that you would think was too exciting at the beginning but for me, it was crossing the line into unknown territory! I sewed seams WITHOUT tacking them first! And guess what? It worked!

And during my first few years of sewing on the sly, I managed to make myself a few things...shorts, tops, a skirt or two. I even figured out how to sew together a collar...this was my first experience in discarding the pattern. I simply took a shirt out of my own closet and studied it's construction and figured out how to do the collar from that instead. Much better than the pattern!

But no...I have just recalled one other experience, an even earlier one that didn't involve a pattern at all! I think I was about 7 years old. I don't know what the heck I was thinking but I decided to make myself a vest...kind of an Indian beaded thing of some sort if I remember correctly. I actually cut this thing out of some of my mother's fabric scraps and "sewed" it together by hand all by myself. I was rather proud of it and actually intended on wearing it to school the next week. I never did wear it...my mother must have intervened before that actually happened. Hmm. I guess I was experimenting rather early in life. Good thing I was a brown noser.

Well, that's the beginning, folks. I would go on and continue the story but I'll leave some for next time.

A cliff hanger of sorts.

Hope to see you soon!