The teacher, Mary, spent almost 2 hours talking about sewing, and then it was time for us to make our first project - a round pillow. I sewed around the edges, leaving a hole to push the stuffing through. I felt bad for the other students because some of them were having mechanical problems - a needle broke, they had bobbin issues (they had front loading bobbins which the teacher definitely disliked), and then 1 lady's machine just jammed up completely and she just took it home to get fixed. My machine didn't have any problems though, so I was thankful for that. Because sewing takes lots of patience...something I don't have a ton of, but am working toward increasing. But machine problems don't help in the patience department of the craft.
The first thing I learned from making this pillow is: don't leave such a large hole to push the stuffing through. Even though the pattern says to leave 6 inches, you can get by with 3 inches, and then you only have 3 inches to sew by hand. And that was my biggest problem. The teacher didn't demonstrate the sewing by hand part, but left it as our homework. Tonight (the night before it's due) I decided to sew my pillow closed so I could bring it in for "Show and Tell". Let me tell you, it took all of my strength to stay calm and not give up in frustration. Well, I kinda did give up in frustration. You see, we were supposed to weave the thread in and out of the seam from the inside with our hand so that you can't tell a difference between the machine sewn part and the hand sewn part. But after 20 minutes of poking myself with the needle and fighting to keep hold of the fabric tight enough, I decided I really didn't care if you could tell. It's a round pillow and if I actually put this pillow out on display anywhere, I will just make sure that the hand sewn part is hidden. It's MY pillow...I can do whatever I want to it...at least that was my attitude tonight (I had a long weekend of working and feeding over 300 people, so that may have contributed to my lack of patience).
Isn't it a cheerful red with flowers fabric? (Really, the price had more to do with my decision to buy it, but it's not a bad fabric for my first official sewing project).
Here's the seam that was machine sewn.
Here's the section that I hand sewed. You can't really tell that much of a difference, right? Ok it looks frumpy, but as stated before, I just didn't care tonight.
Our second project (that I'll start tomorrow night) is a skirt. The pattern claims it will be easy! 
I have the fabric washed, pressed, and cut out already, so tomorrow night we should just be sewing. The skirt has an elastic draw string waist, so that should be interesting. I'll update you on my success with the project and whether or not I will actually wear what I make in public.
