Domesticity

Yesterday, I did two domestic things I've never done before. Get ready for story time.

Five months ago I took a sewing class. By completing and paying for the sewing class, I became the owner of a brand new BL9 Baby Lock sewing machine. Now, five months later, I finally take the machine out of the box to sew something.

This project became quite the process. The main cause of this being a "process" is that I learned to sew in my sewing class on a totally different (nicer, more expensive) machine. I think the hardest part of sewing is wrestling with the sewing machine, or maybe I'll call it getting acquainted with the sewing machine. I spent 3 hours Tuesday and another hour yesterday "getting acquainted" with my machine.

I had to learn how to thread this machine, thread the bobbin, and load the bobbin in the correct place. I finally got all of that under control, so then I started practicing on scrap material. Good thing I practiced, because then I discovered that I needed to adjust the tension on the machine as well.

When I finally got everything rolling I was ready to start my project. Since this was my first project outside of sewing class where I would be unsupervised I decided to do something very small and simple. I sewed a valance for the window in our bathroom.

Our old bathroom didn't have a window and the one at this house has a  small window and a valance that they had left. Since our bathroom matches and coordinates with an OU theme and colors, and the window is so small, I decided this would be a safe and satisfying project to under take.

Yea! Now the curtains match the bathroom! Such a small project, yet I am very pleased with the results.

 


 Honestly, I am probably not naturally inclined to learn how to sew. It requires skills that I lack or just have not fine tuned: exactness, attention to detail, and PATIENCE! However, I am still going to tinker around with it and see if I get any better. I'm glad that our first child is going to be a boy. I need much more practice before I start sewing little girl things.

For now sewing will be a good thing to spend time on since I will be staying home with baby boy. Most of my family cannot imagine me not working/not having a job. I have had a job doing something since I was 15 years old. My mom asks me what am I going to do being at home all day. Well, I found the answer: sewing! It sure takes up a lot of time.

When the possibility of living out of state was still up in the air we were a little bit anxious about having to live in  small town where we didn't know anyone. I told my husband that it would be okay, we would just get really good at our hobbies. Since we ended up staying in Oklahoma, I'm not so sure how good I will actually get at sewing, we'll just wait and see.

Now I told you I did two domestic things yesterday that I've never done before. The first one is the unsupervised sewing project. The second project took place in the kitchen, since I am much more familiar and experienced in that arena.

I had some old bananas that I didn't get around to eating so I made some banana bread. I've never made it before and it turned out quite tasty. Thanks for the recipe Ariel.

 
 I usually don't eat or buy bananas so that could be why I've never made banana bread before. Now I'm anxiously awaiting for the next time I can make some banana bread. Guess I better go buy some bananas.

Today has been filled with domesticity as well, nothing new or too exciting: laundry and cleaning. I finally unpacked and washed two boxes of our crystal and wine glasses. Those have not been a high priority, but now I actually have room for all of them in our cabinets.

Whew! It's been a busy couple of days. Reading and writing about it all makes me want to take a nap!