Hobbies

I had promised this week I would write about hobbies.

It has been a rough week for me and I am not feeling great, but I am going to write about hobbies because I just can’t be positive about the other stuff right now.

While I was on my week of rest, I decided to invest in getting better equipment for one of my hobbies, sewing. When I started sewing 10 years ago, I was looking for a new hobby because I was newly divorced and I needed to meet new people. I wanted to learn something new that would give my life a little refresh. And I wanted to make a t-shirt quilt.

I liked sewing right away. I loved making things and playing with different fabrics allowed me to be creative but didn’t require any artistic skills like drawing. There was a great little studio in the Santa Fe arts district here in CO that I loved and they did classes and I took a bunch of them. Learned how to use a sewing machine and made all kinds of fun things. New purses, mail organizers, even a skirt and pj pants. I even took a quilting class where we made a tiny “coffee mug” quilt that you could use as a coaster. I still hadn’t tackled that t-shirt quilt, but I was having a good time.

I moved to Florida a few years after I started sewing and there I found a great quilt shop where I could take classes and they also sold fantastic fabric. I finally learned how to make a big quilt and I even took a class on making that t-shirt quilt.

But along the way, the more complicated the projects got, the harder it was for my little sewing machine to keep up. It was a starter machine. Light and easy to travel with for classes but that meant it didn’t quite have the power for sewing complicated bags and it wasn’t big enough to handle a full sized quilt, it could barely handle the top of the quilt. I found myself not sewing things because they were just too much work to try to muscle through that machine and that meant I started to enjoy sewing less and less.

And because I wasn’t enjoying myself anymore, I wasn’t willing to invest in the hobby much anymore. Sewing machines with power are not cheap and it was not an investment I was willing to make.

Cut to four years later, I am walking my dog and I meet this wonderful couple who also have a greyhound. We start walking together a couple of times a week. After many conversations, I find out they both sew. I told them how I used to love it but just didn’t anymore because of the machine. They convinced me to get a better machine. I could always return it, right?

So during my week of rest, I shopped around and tried different machines and finally found one that I think I like. I spent more than I had wanted to, but it does everything I was looking for. And I figured, I had some time off so I could try one or two of the difficult projects and see how I felt. And it was amazing how much easier things were and how much faster. I did some coats for greyhounds last winter on my old machine and they were just so difficult after two-three days of trying, I stopped working on them. With the new machine, I finished the same amount in 4 hours. I was so excited.

Now, I am realizing that I like to sew again. I am also finding out that I am really too much of a perfectionist when it comes to what I am doing with sewing. I tend to make mistakes and that makes it hard for me to commit to making things for other people. So, I am having to come to terms with the fact that sometimes, I will make mistakes. I might have to rip a few seams or buy extra fabric, but that is ok. Making mistakes is how we learn and not everything will be perfect. And, having the right tools always helps with confidence.

I am hoping that I can continue this hobby for years to come. I might never make clothes (that is too scary right now) but every time I make something, I will learn something new and I will make something beautiful and that will be enough. And, hopefully, it will continue to be fun.

Do you have any hobbies? What do you like most about them? I would love to hear.

Hoping you all have a beautiful week!