Tonight was the first installment in Sewing 101. The first cool thing about the class was that it is in Western Tech, a high school/ technical school that I have been wanting to see the inside of for a few years now. The outside is a tiny bit reminiscent of the school in the Harry Potter series, but not as nice on the inside. It was just OLD. But in a good way. The floor that we were on seemed to be the one where all the night classes were held, so it was neat to be amongst the Spanish classes, and cooking classes that were taking place as well.
The room was very similar to the room your mom or grandmother would have been in when they were required to take sewing in school or as part of their vocational training. Everyone in the class is a woman, which didn't surprise me, but what DID surprise me was that a lot of the women were young. Young girls, middle aged women and much older women wanting to learn a skill were present in the classroom. I thought it was very neat the amount of young people there were.
This led me to believe that women are wanting to take up the art of sewing not for the same reasons their female ancestors did, but BECAUSE their female ancestors did. Everyone expressed that their mom, or grandmother, or great grandmother always sewed and that they wanted to learn it as well, not because it is a necessity, but because they view it as art. And it is quickly becoming a lost art form.
The class was all over the place, and we all had to get PRETTY comfortable with each other very fast as one of the first things we did was measure each other. Our crazy instructor, Elsy, picked one of us out of the crowd and demonstrated how to properly measure yourself to make your clothes fit. Oh lordy! It was cool, no one was embarrassed. Then she showed us how to thread a sewing machine and we were all WHA WHA?? Really? It works like that?? All the looping and winding and threading going on, INSANE!
Anyway, it was interesting. And I am pretty excited to learn how to actually use a sewing machine. Our projects for the class are pretty basic (well, in the sewing world, not for me!): a pillow with a zipper, a skirt, possibly a jacket, and a bag. Exciting! How long have I been going on in this blog about wanting to buy yards of fabric? And now I get to! I can make my own shit and not have to be happy with the mediocre crap that has been pumped out in stores for the past forever.
So stay tuned for my projects folks! I will post the pictures the more I learn and create!
