Apron frustrations!

It seemed like a good idea at the time but now I am frustrated beyond belief! My nephew has a birthday soon and as he likes cooking things, I thought I'd whip myself into action and make him his very own apron. So yesterday I researched various types of apron - I never knew there was so many! Then I looked through my material stash to see what would do the job. I was being a little tight coz I didn't want to buy any material especially for the job! So I'd decided on bottle green curtain material. It doesn't look as awful as that sounds! The material I chose for the pocket was the fat quarter I bought to do the Tibetan Terrier notebook cover I made recently (see recent blog entry). Having decided they went quite well together and that the overall combination was 'manly' enough, off I went into sewing oblivion! I was happy making this at first and the thought of doing lots of straight line sewing, seemed appealing and made me smile! That was until I started sewing! Stop, start, jam, re-thread, start, jam, stop, re-thread, start, stop....you get the picture! It looked clearly like a 'tension' problem as the thread kept snapping. I changed the thread, putting it down to cheap cotton! Didn't make any difference. So I changed the tension on the top cotton to a lower figure: this had no impact. Even tried zero in an attempt to bamboozle the machine! Nope didn't work. I took the hook race cover etc out as well as the bobbin (as it kept balling-up too) and blew all the cotton-dust out of there - only effect was breathing it all in and sneezing like a good-un! Though this cleared my tubes, it had no effect on the sewing machine's performance (or mine!). If I re-threaded the machine 40x, this would probably not be exaggerating. Quite how I restrained myself from chucking the machine out of the window, I don't know! Well actually I do know. My desire to finish what I'd started was greater than the desire to smash it with a lump hammer and also, the whole time I was thinking "What am I doing incorrectly? It is only a machine. It is only doing what I tell it to do. This machine doesn't have a mind of it's own and so it can't be trying to get one back on me! It must be something I'm doing wrong but who knows what!" KEEP CALM was my mantra, BREATHE was what I had to remind myself to do! And no I'm not some new age hippy chick but rather a worn out, frustrated and ever so slightly, dotty chick!

Despite the onward struggle to sew anything at all, I soldiered on and was quite pleased with myself when I managed to work out that the waist straps and neck strap had to be sandwiched inside the two layers - yes this apron is fully lined! When I turned the apron the right side out, I realised that I'd managed to twist the neck strap even though I took great care in getting it not twisted! Out came the stitch unpicker AGAIN! All that was left to do was to stitch around the outside...but this proved even more frustrating as it was this stitching that is visible. So I'm afraid to say I gave up temporarily and have enlisted my friend's sewing machine to finish the job! Oh ye of little patience!

PS:  My friend's sewing machine sewed the outside edge with no problems with tension, needle size or any snags!  Hmmm, me wonders whether my little trusty machine from LIDL's can't keep up the pace?  Lets hope it ain't broke...or i will be broke, buying another!  More sewing planned for tomorrow, so time will tell!