Sewing and weaving

I first learned to sew at home using a Singer treadle powered sewing machine when I was a very young girl growing up on a small dairy farm in northern Wisconsin.  Later my mom acquired an electric model which I used during middle school and later in high school.  The machines were very basic and my sewing skills were pretty elementary.  Still, I did make most of my high school clothing.  As I grew older and retail offered more affordable options I pretty much stopped sewing during my twenties and beyond.

As I’ve improved my weaving skills I’ve become interested in how I might use my weaving skills to make more usable things beyond the normal towels, scarves, runners and place mats.  Not that I don’t enjoy weaving these items, I do!  But I’d like to be able to weave fabric and then turn that fabric into something more.  Recently I stumbled across an article in Handwoven magazine which described how to create a tablet sleeve.  It explored a weaving structure called Bateman Boulevard with a reference to how to construct a tablet sleeve from the resulting fabric.   After giving it much consideration I decided that while I could certainly weave the fabric I was definitely not confident in my sewing skills to dare start cutting my precious handwoven fabric!  I needed to brush up my sewing abilities!

I’m using the book “School of Sewing” by Shea Henderson as my guide to improving my skills.  It covers all the basic information a beginner needs to know and has twelve projects which are intended to build up skills with each successive project.  So far I’ve completed lessons 1-7 and am eager to start lesson eight which describes how to make a “tech case”!  I’m thankful that I have the time to devote to learning something new during this covid era.

References:

Nichols, Margaret.  “Bateman Boulevard Tablet Sleeve”, Handwoven, November/December 2015, pages 42-43.

Henderson, Shea.  “School of Sewing”, 2014.  Lucky Spool Media, LLC.