Tara Tuesdays - Part 1

As promised last week, from now on Tuesdays at Emma's Fabric Studio blog are known as 'Tara Tuesdays' where my sewing and knitting friend Tara, aka T Girl, will write about her weekly shennanigans (don't you just love that word?!).  So, from me (Emma) - over to T Girl!

How my obsession started and how Emma and I met After acquiring a vintage Singer sewing machine and bags of yarn from a good friend (his Mum was a professional seamstress and had recently sadly passed away), I decided that I needed to do something with both the machine and the yarn. Both of my Nan’s taught me to knit and sew when I was little and I knew that my Aunt was a fabulous knitter and sewer. I asked her if she could help me learn to knit again and once I started there was no stopping me! I made my first scarf using some very fine merino wool which was quite a difficult first project but one that I was determined to finish!

This was the just the start for me and you can imagine my delight when a booklet dropped through my letterbox with details of Adult Education courses in my area covering both knitting and sewing! By this time I had knitted several scarves, and I felt confident that I was no longer a beginner (!) so I decided to enrol for the “Sewing for Beginners” class which is where Emma and I first met. Our first project was a reversible shopper which I made on my beautiful Singer.

I wasn’t content however with making just the one bag, oh no, I had to make two!  When I had my first “Show & Tell” session I was so pleased with myself and kept thinking how proud my Nan would have been of me. Also, having no experience what so ever of buying fabric, I went for the most expensive pieces I could find to use for my bags! As my knowledge has grown I hunt the bargains down now although I do have to do the “feel test” to check the quality of what I am working with!

I know that we all really enjoyed the classes and making the projects as the hard core of the group continued for 3 terms and although we were sad when it finished, we still continued to meet up every week as we all live very near to each other (apart from Emma!) We were very fortunate to have Nicki Trench as our teacher - here is a link to her blog. She is a fantastic and enthusiastic teacher and we all had such fun with her every week making beautiful and interesting projects.

The ladies left in the group that still get together now are Emma, Ginny, Mary, Mags, Sue and of course me! All of us bring something different to the group, we all have different levels of knowledge, skills and abilities and what is so lovely is the fact that we all support, help and encourage one another to make beautiful things. We are all up for a challenge and have increased our skills no end compared to when we first started our night class together. I think I am very lucky to have met these lovely people and often wonder what I did with my time before this!