Weekend Project: Starting the New Year off Right!

Many people have trouble sticking to their resolutions, and there is a simple scientific explanation for this. In 1987, a team of psychologists conducted a study in which they monitored the New Year's resolutions of 275 people. After one week the psychologists found that 92 percent of the people were keeping their resolutions; after two weeks we have no idea what happened because the psychologists had quit monitoring.

~ Dave Barry

My New Year started off with a "bang" - a sew-along at my house. Ana is making a blue flannel shirt for her Dad...


and her new boyfriend is making a good impression on Ana by helping! ;)


I've probably been "helping" Ana too much with her sewing, and thus not letting her develop the skill of working independently. This time, happily, my attention was distracted by Maria - she is one of the students in my ESL class and asked if I would help her sew a jacket.


This is the pattern she had picked out:



Luckily, it's an easy one!


And here is the fabric she had:




Unfortunately, it's a very loose weave that falls apart quite easily as soon as it is cut. :(


It turns out that Maria has her own sewing machine and has made simple skirts for her granddaughters without a pattern and done lots of hemming in her time, so she is quite comfortable with the actual sewing. She just has never used a pattern or made something as "complicated" as a jacket - although this is actually quite an easy one...


So it was easy and enjoyable to work with her. Mostly I just pointed to the pattern illustrations and helped her line up whatever pieces we were working with to match the pictures. We did use my serger to protect each cut edge from fraying.


And she does want to take in the side seams to give the jacket more shaping at her waist. We got about half-way done during our first sewing session. I'll try to get you a picture of her modeling the jacket when we finish.


In between all this, I did sneak in some sewing on my PINK laptop case too. I'm going to try to finish by next weekend, and get some pictures up. (So prepare your sunglasses!) ;)


I hope your 2011 is getting off to a great start sewing-wise, too! :)