Sewing 101

Holy moly, I've decided to take a sewing class!  Not a simple, Senior Center sewing class taught by nice elder ladies who love to sew. Nope, a full semester of sewing 101 at a community college with "kids" about 20 years younger than me (now that makes me feel old!).  I'm not so sure what I got myself into, or my friend into.  I convinced a good friend of mine to take the class with me and I don't know if she'll ever talk to me again once it's over.  The class is taught by a young, skinny lady who worked in New York City for Calvin Klein (or someone equally famous and fancy).  I'm not so sure she can teach, really.  The first day started off with her saying "go pick a machine and begin to thread your needle and wind your bobbin.  Then just free sew for a while."  Huh?  What the heck?  Now, I know what a needle and bobbin are (I'm not that uneducated in sewing lingo).  But where do I start? 

After some time (and lots of cheating) I finally got the hang of the class and am really beginning to like it.  I decided - probably very foolishly - to go and get my own sewing machine.  First, let me show you what machine I'm learning to sew on.  It looks something like this one:
  
As you can probably see, this macine is digital.  A push of a button gives you so many choices to choose from.  It also costs over $1,000.  I decided to go a bit older and cheaper.  As you can see, this is my "new" machine:


Yup.  Not exactly digital, but I was assured it works.  It's also about 60 years old, and was free.  I apologize ahead of time to everyone I will be gifting hand sewn projects to.  I'll try my best to make sure it doesn't look like something from a 5th grade Home Ec class.  Wish me luck!

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