Project Round-up

My Mom's birthday is right around Mother's day, so the two usually get lumped together. Don't feel too bad though, as I've got it worse (Birthday/Christmas), so it's only fair I do it back to her. So this year she requested me to put my creative powers to use and come up with a unique and handmade gift. As with anything unique and handmade by me, this means it was a week late, but more about that later.

Boyfriend is fascinated by making things he previously didn't think could be made at home - in this case, lotion. A couple of weeks ago he went on a kick where he researched up a storm on lotion-making, and decided to set up his own lotion lab in his kitchen. I think in his head he's doing a massive chemistry experiment, but that works for me. So far we have made two batches, citrus basil and grapefruit, so the first part of my Mom's present was grapefruit lotion and body creme.

My new thing is making bags, so I thought I would make my mom a bag as well. I cut it all out and was doing fine sewing away, until my bobbin ran out of thread. Now, normally it's not a huge deal to put more thread on the bobbin. But my sewing machine and I have an interesting relationship. I haven't used it terribly much since I got it for Christmas a couple of years ago, mostly because it's so time-consuming for me to sew (about twice as long as the normal person, as I feel I don't need to use patterns). I also managed to lose the foot about 3 or 4 months ago, so that put a damper on sewing. I noticed a shiny silver thing on the floor one day, picked it up and though, hmm, this looks kinda like my sewing machine foot, and put it somewhere, and didn't find it again until a week or two ago. And that was after I had already bought a replacement foot. Anyways, I digress. So the particular issue with threading the bobbin involves the fact that I have sewed a whole lot more using my Mom's sewing machine which has a key difference. In order to thread the bobbin, you have to unscrew a knob, which I could not get for the life of me. I thought I had broken it. So I had boyfriend come over the next day to try and unscrew it. He couldn't get it either. Finally, after quite a while, I had the brilliant idea to look at the owner's manual. Sure enough, you have to twist the knob the opposite direction, which is different than it is on my Mom's. So there, you only have your own sewing machine to blame for your late present, Mom. :)