#sewnwithhart - Day One - Sewing Story

I just heard about Harts Fabric's #sewnwithhart Self Care Sewing Month this morning and think it's such a lovely idea, so I'm going to give it a go. I obviously had quite a few days to catch up with, but have really enjoyed thinking about my answers and taking some photos this afternoon :)

My experiences with sewing had a rather bumpy start with Home Economics at School. I was terrified of the sewing machines and not at all in touch with my creative side back then, so found the whole thing rather torturous and didn't go near a sewing machine again for years!

In my early 20s I was very ill and spent years mostly housebound, at times bedbound, and started to get more in touch with my creative side. At first it was cross stitch, as that appealed to my more geeky, control freaky side. I loved designing the patterns on graph paper and seeing them come to life on the cross stitch fabric.

Then a friend of mine, who I'd met online through having the same illness, bought a very reasonably priced sewing machine on eBay. She was having a lot of fun learning to sew and recommended I got one too.

It was seriously one of the best decisions I've made. I wasn't well enough to sit at it for long at a time, but found it so therapeutic just sewing random bits of fabric together and experimenting with making little bags, pouches, hair ruffles, etc out of a variety of fabrics.

I'm not really sure what happened then, but I drifted from sewing for a time and started getting back to it around the time I originally started this blog in 2012. My sewing story has been up and down since then, with spells where I'm loving it and spells where it all feels too much (darn that lack of confidence and fear of failure) and spells where life just takes over!

I'm doing well at the moment though and loving every minute I spend sitting at my sewing machine.