I am a firm believer that anyone can be a great seamstress as long as they have the right machine. The wrong machine can make you want to pull all your hair out and die a little inside.

And, from time to time, a friend or blog reader will send me a message and ask my recommendations for purchasing their first machine. (Because, unlike me, they’re smart enough to want to buy the right machine the first time.) One that won’t break the bank. One that will be easy to learn on. One that works for experienced sewers but is also good for beginners.

Well. That’s what this post is all about. My best advice for purchasing a sewing machine you won’t want to murder. A few non-negotiable features you should have in your first (or second, or third) machine.

What about a little back-story? Yes? Ok. Here’s the abridged version:

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Wanna know a secret? Husband and I have been married for nearly six years. (No, silly, that’s not the secret…) And, in all those years, we’ve never once lived in an apartment that had a decent place to put a dining room table. (Yep. A little sad, I know.) And, as you can imagine, in six years, that’s a whole lot of TV-tray dining. Too much, one might say. 

So, now that our dreams of home ownership have come true, we’ve finally got the necessary room for our family dinner table. And. Let me tell you. Family dinners around an actual dining table are incredibly lovely. Now that I’ve seen the light, I was definitely missing out. 

And, the other day I spent some quality time with Brother (love that guy) and whipped off a few more place mats in preparation for a particularly special family dinner.

Except this time, I made them reversible! Check it out!

That means, when I inevitably spill most of my dinner on one side, I can flip them all over and avoid a washing for a few days! Horray! And, I even used some left-over interfacing from this tutorial to make them extra stiff (like place mats should be!) Super sweet!

Check out the original “Easy Chevron Place mat” tutorial below (incorporating the directions in the ‘I promise it’s easy make up bag” tutorial for adding the interfacing) and give your own table a fresh make-over for spring! 

hollyhelps:

Several months ago I, as I’ve been known to do, spilled coffee on one of our living room end tables. (I spill things. I break things. It’s just what I do. Remember the premise for this post? Lawyered. I rest my case.) And, of course, it left my generic walmart-purchased place-mat stained with the bulk of my morning cream-and-sugar french press deliciousness. (And tears.)

Now, I was naturally annoyed. Not only did I not have enough caffeine in my system to deal with this Holly-ta-strophe (do you see what I did there?) but I also had just sentenced myself to an afternoon without end-table-toppers. (My OCD really hates it when things are out of place.)

Now, I wasn’t at all emotionally involved with these toppers. They were simply the right-ish color when I purchased them and so that’s what I lived with… for years. Kind of a ‘ehh, it’s good enough’ mentality. I mean, they’re only table top covers. They’re probably the smallest detail in my living room. Right? So, I went on with my wash-and-replace plan.

At some point in the time it took to washer and dryer my coffee soaked mats, I decided that I kind of liked my now naked end tables and decided not replace my clean toppers. That was a mistake. My indifference toward my place-mats had left my vision blurred. I was unable to see that my tables looked 1) totally stupid without something on top, and 2) kind of gross themselves…

You see, our living room end tables are re-painted versions of something we didn’t like all that much to begin with. Hand-me-downs that we fixed the color of and now kind of like. But in the process of our cross-country move from Georgia to St. Louis, the paint got scratched forcing me to touch it up. All well and good, except that I neglected to mix the left-over valspar well enough and ended up with patches that didn’t totally match the rest of the table’s color. Patches that those place mats used to hide perfectly well.

So, upon realization of how silly and unkempt this actually looked, I finally decided enough was enough. I would get off my lazy buns and go find my old place-mats.

No luck. Several months of neglect and an extended trip aboard had apparently left my place-mats feeling unloved. So, they ran away. Who knows where they might have gone? They obviously fled in search of someone who would love them more than I. (Either that or they’re somewhere in my basement, and I was too afraid of all the spiders to conduct a full-scale reconnaissance mission.)

So, the other day, during baby’s afternoon snoozer, I took a few minutes and whipped off a couple new ones. Awesome ones. Like, ones you probably won’t find in the store, and if you did they’d be a ridiculous price because they’re too cool to be cheap. I mean, to find super rad chevron place-mats in the correct size on my frugal budget would surely be a pipe dream.

Luckily, I had some sweet chevron fabric left over from a fabric.com purchase a while back, and these were just as easy as they could possibly be. It took no time at all to whip off two in perfect proportion!

And, and and, just look at how pretty: 

No longer are these a minuscule little detail of my living room, they’re a superbly rad hint of put-together home decor. 

And you can do it, too! It is almost mind-numbingly easy.

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So, remember way back in December, in this post, when I promised that I had a make-up bag/purse tutorial but then totally never delivered? (In fact, had I blogged it in an appropriate amount of time it could have been a seriously perfect DIY for your Christmas list. Bad, Holly. Bad.) Yeah. Sorry about that. Sometimes I’m not so good. But, hey! It’s like they say, ’better late than never,’ amiright? 

I know, I know. Don’t be mad. It’s just, things have just been slipping through the cracks a little bit lately. Mostly due to my mid-winter lack-of-motivation.

First of all, I haven’t done a sewing project in a while. Like, a while-while. But who can blame me? The only area in this dinky apartment for my sewing machine to live is in the non-temperature controlled sun-room off our kitchen. And, let me tell you, if you thought it was hard to fill baby’s nap time with productive craftiness before, try forcing yourself to think ahead at least 20 minutes to ensure that the room is warmed to a livable temperature prior to any of that ‘productive craftiness’ we talked about earlier. Most of my craftiness is impromptu. It’s just how Holly operates.

So, if you were thinking to yourself, “Wow, that Holly has really been slacking off on the sewing tutorials lately, I wonder why?” Well. Mystery solved, my friend. Mystery solved.

But, don’t fret sewing friends! Luckily, I stored away some pics for this easy make-up bag tutorial in the Holly Helps vault for a rainy day. Or, snowy day, rather. (No. It didn’t snow today, but the symmetry was there. And it was cold enough to snow. And, I totally refused to leave the house all day due to the 22 degree temperature. No thanks. I wasn’t meant for this chill. I just wasn’t.)

Okay. So. Go turn on your space heater. Ha! (I make jokes to hide the pain.)

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On the day that you closed the refrigerator door a tad too hard setting off an unfortunate chain reaction which sent an entire jar of molasses toppling toward your tile thus shattering everywhere: you really need a win.

Today was just that day. Not only did that sucker break into a thousand and seven pieces over two rooms, but it did absolutely nothing for our ant problem, if you know what I mean. So, after cleaning up that horrific mess, I feel like I really earned some one-on-one time with my sewing machine.

So, in the wake of what I’m calling the “Molasses Incident” (I’m pretty sure a chilling made-for-TV movie is sure to follow), I decided to actually do something with this awesome teapot patterned fabric bought a while ago, but have yet to Fiskar.

Hmm.. but what do I make out of teapot patterned fabric? Hmm.. Just kidding. It’s obvious, right? Like the answer is staring me right in my molasses splattered face…

Honestly what choice other choice does one have than to make a super sweet reversible apron like this:

So, a very special shout out to Elle’s afternoon nap for this total day-redemption via reversible apron! Jealous? Well don’t be! Let me show you how to make your own! It’s easy!

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Every once in a while, you stumble upon an invention or discovery that, once employed, you literally cannot remember how you functioned without it’s daily presence in your life. I feel like early man felt somewhat similar about the invention of the wheel, or heat, or electricity. Now, I’m not suggesting that the following item I’ve just now discovered even existed rivals electricity. But, had you seen the nerdy excitement on my face when I employed it for the very first time, you would totally have thought that I did.

Without further ado, I present to you… uhm… this thing:

A quick google search would confirm what I’m calling it, “Cone Thread Holder.” Though, I think my original term was, “big thread holdy deal.” (I’m very technical).

Now, I’ve touched on the topic of cone thread in other posts before, and I know what you’re thinking, “what’s the big deal,” right? Well. Cone thread is a vastly better value than spool threads like these: 

And now for comparison, the ‘cone’ version…

Seriously. Not only are there 10 times more thread on a cone, you can literally find this type of thread at your neighborhood Joanne Fabrics, or Hancock Fabrics for the same price or even less than its small spool counterpart. Which, is why, given the option, even if it’s an obscure color that I know I’ll never use all of, I always, always buy the cone thread. It’s the same way I feel about buying coleslaw in the industrial sized portion Sam’s Club sells: “Even though I don’t necessarily need a 3 lb. vat of coleslaw, and won’t even hope to be able to finish it before it goes bad, at $3.44 for the tub I literally could throw 2.5lbs of it away and still save money over purchasing it at my grocer’s deli.”  (Yes, my life is just a daily tightrope walk of that fine line between wasteful and economical.)

So.. let’s compare those babies once more.. (the threads, not the coleslaw.)

Did you see it? Did your eyes zero in on my main point here? Spool thread boasts a measely 300 yards of thread per spool while my good friend Coney holds a whopping 3,000 yards! Seriousy, when in real life do you get something for the same amount or less that is literally 10 times the size of the other guy? Probably almost never (Herein lies the real reason for why I am just oh so passionate about cone-thread!).

You may not necessarily find all the colors you’d ever want in cone-version, but you will find most. Cone thread has a vast selection of colors, and I own several fun ones plus the necessary ‘staple’ colors of white, black, brown, blue, etc. You also will probably only find cone thread in ‘all purpose’ version. I’ve never found cone-upholstery threads or other thick threads as they are far too expensive for the economical cone-type. But, then again, how often does one really need upholstery thread? Not often, that’s how often.

Okay. Back to my holder guy, and why he’s so wonderful. I feel like this picture needs a fuzzy pink heart around it, but I’m trying to hold myself back from that level of geek-dom:

Yes, my new love. Discovered by my mother-in-law at her local craft store, and passed on to me like a burning torch of honor. As you can see, there is a metal spoke in the middle that holds that cone thread on, and a larger metal spoke with a loop at the top to hold your thread up. Once you pop your cone on there, and pass it’s end through the loop, you simply thread your machine per usual and get to sewing!

Now, some of you who have used cone thread before on a regular sewing machine (aka, a machine that doesn’t have a specific holder for this type of thread), will understand why this is such a humongously big deal to me. That is, if your machine is only made to hold spool thread, and you use cone thread, this means you have to just sit your little cone behind your machine and deal with the fact that you will inevitably and repeatedly knock it over with the object you’re working on. Which is annoying. Especially when, for the 10th time in a row, it falls behind your sewing table and can’t be reached until you pull 17 objects out from underneath to retrieve it.  Which, is the most absurd and frustrating reconnaissance mission you may ever embark upon. This is the main reason I can’t use the space beneath my sewing table for storage anymore. (Which totally bums me out, because that was valuable storage real estate in our tiny apartment.)

But, alas, thanks to my new friend, I don’t have to worry about falling thread anymore! Hip hip horray! Ding dong, the witch is dead! (I’m not totally sure who the witch is in this scenario, but you get the sentiment.)

So, I know what you’re thinking: “Where on earth can I buy one of these amazing miracle thread holders, and just exactly how many millions of dollars should I start saving now so that I can have my very own!?”

Welp, dear friends, like everything I write about, I wouldn’t talk about it unless it were an economical venture. You can get your very own cone thread holder for the low low price of like 7-ish bucks. My mother-in-law found this one at her local craft store, but you can search “cone thread holder” on Amazon and find one between $6.50 and $18.00. (Not sure why these two sellers have them at such drastically different prices, but whaddayagonnado?) This was the best price I found.

So, now that I’ve totally blown your mind, run out and grab this baby before they all fly off the shelves. And when the manufacturers are utterly confused as to the sudden rise in demand, you can proudly point your accusing index finger square in the direction of Holly Helps! (ah-thank-you.)