I’m constantly wanting to redecorate and update my home. It has been just over three years since we moved into our first house. And that’s been pretty amazing for me, to have a place to put down roots.
My entire childhood I spent in one home. My parents moved there shortly before I was born and I stayed until I left for college. After that point, I do a whole lot of moving. Between moving in and out of a dorm for my first two years, then getting an apartment and moving back and forth from South Carolina, I ended up moving 13 times in a 6 year span. Needless to say, when we bought this house, I was ready to stay put.
I had never had a place before this that I ever took the time or energy to decorate. As you can tell, I moved about every 6 months, so there was never any point. The best I got were a few pictures hanging on the wall. Now that we’ve been here, I have enjoyed being able to put a little of myself into it and making into a “home” (with the help of my sister, who is a fabulous interior designer!) But at the same time, I haven’t done much changing since we originally moved in back in 2010. I never could bring myself to spend that kind of money on something that we already had.
Recently, my mom has taken back up some sewing projects. She used to sew a lot when I was growing up. I can think of so many outfits that we had that she made for us. I’ve actually always been a little sad that sewing wasn’t something I had picked up from my mom, especially when I have so many memories of her working at her sewing machine, making dresses or costumes or long, flowy (by the way, I just realized that’s not an actual word) skirts that we could twirl in. But my mom has been busy making pillows and such for her house and beach condo and I mentioned that I’d love to have some new pillows here. And since I’ve been looking for a new “recovering from surgery” project, it seemed like perfect timing.
So we set off for the fabric store today and picked out some lovely gray and blue fabrics that we brought home and got to work on. It definitely took some time… I’d say just over an hour a pillow, between measuring and cutting and lining up the sides and sewing in the zippers and putting the whole thing together, but it was totally worth it. Plus, it was a lot of fun to get a lesson in sewing from my mom and to pick up one of her hobbies.
I also found out that sewing is not as difficult as I had imagined. I’m not pretending that I know what I’m doing beyond stitching two pieces of fabric together in a straight line, but I started getting the hang of it by the end of the day. I think it’s something I’d enjoy continuing with in the future. Maybe even some day I can make some cute outfits for my kids that they’ll have some great memories of wearing.