As some crafters may know, March is National Craft Month. I’ve been thinking about it for a few weeks, how I wanted to do something to “celebrate,” but was drawing a blank. Then it hit me – maybe I should unbox the sewing machine I purchased last summer for the first time, and actually use it!

Every week this month, I’m going to write a post about the projects I’m doing with my sewing machine. I am an absolute beginner – that is to say, I haven’t used a sewing machine regularly since home economics class in middle school. I’m very excited to start sewing, and hopefully get to the point I am at with crochet where I can pick up almost anything in the store and say, “I can do that!”

My sister sews on a fairly regular basis (she is basically an apron extraordinaire), so I invited her over one night and we went to the local fabric store for supplies. I got 3 yards of a plain forest green cotton, 1 yard of a decorative blue cotton, matching thread for each, extra needles (for when I surely break mine), and Velcro.

Then it was back to my house to eat dinner and set up the machine. (I felt more comfortable having someone there who was familiar with the hardware – sewing machines have more parts than I am used to with crafting and I was afraid I might break it, regardless of having the instructions.) There’s no point in photographing and explaining how to wind the bobbin, load it, and load the thread and thread the needle, etc. If you are here and having a sewing machine, you likely know how to do it; also sewing machines are slightly different. While setting mine up was MOSTLY the same, my sister came across one or two things that were different from her own machine.

The first thing I made was a heating pack. You know, the kind you just throw in the microwave for a few minutes and put on your neck if you have a headache or neck-ache. Or are just cold.

I used the tutorial found here. I didn’t pin anything, because I didn’t really care and couldn’t find my pins at that exact moment. Also I’m pretty lazy, but it was just a heating pad for myself, so I wasn’t particularly concerned. As stuffing, I used some white rice we had in the kitchen. The only thing I wish I’d done differently concerns the stuffing – it is SLIGHTLY overstuffed. I used one of the smaller boxes of Minute Rice and part of a bigger box we had leftover, which was a bit too much. You could probably get away with just one regular box of rice. Remember, you still have to be able to drape it around your neck!