Sarah vs. Sewing Machine (or How I Learned My Husband Is a Super Hero)

The other day, Justin bought me a sewing machine he found on a garage sale site. Only thirty bucks,

three months old, and only used a handful of time until the seller decided to buy a more expensive one. It's nothing fancy. Just a little Brother sewing machine with a couple different types of stitches and some knobs that I have no idea how to use. But I was thrilled! However, being the busy person I am, I didn't have the time to put it all together and try to remember how to use a sewing machine.I haven't touched one since my freshman year of college. So last night, while I was pissed off and mad at work and sadly ignoring my patient husband, he found the instructional manual online and painstakingly threaded the machine and taught himself the basics so he could show me before he left for a meeting he had.

My first attempts were pretty pathetic. I knotted the thread, I had to re-thread the machine, I knotted the thread again, I re-thread the machine again, and finally I realized that I had ruined the project I was working on. Angrily, I threw down my project, turned off the sewing machine, and went to console myself with a glass of wine and a bath while reading the last Harry Potter book (it's been about two years since I've read it so I wanted to read it again.).

I did not re-engage with my nemesis until Justin came home later. He saw the ruined wreckage of my project and sat me down and figured out what I'd done wrong. Apparently, I had the stitch set to zig-zag, also I was trying to sew horizontally, when I should have been running it through vertically. (Dur!)  He calmly reset the machine and showed me how. Then he surprised me with some pretty iridescent red thread for my project and pretty yarn to crochet with (that's my other "crafty project", except I actually know some

of the basics of crocheting.

To top it off, he found the seam-ripper and began the arduous task of ripping out my tangled and messy attempts that I thought had ruined my project.

The morals of this story are:

1. My husband is a wonderful and amazing man who loves me greatly, even when I know I don't deserve the patience and kind words.

2. I need to have way more patience with this crafting-business.

3. When you don't know quite how to do something, it's best not to practice with something that you really like or care about. Especially when that project contains nice fabric that you don't have much of.

4. Justin is way better at this than I am!