Now that I know what I'm doing...

Background check!  I had my first sewing lesson a little over two years ago, and those days of clumsy fingers and sloppy seams seem a distant memory.  I remember trying to force things to happen because of gaps in my understanding of how things go together.  I remember sewing pieces together upside down or inside out, and on my first bag I sewed the handles in between the lining and the shell--that took a few tries to figure out.  But it all comes together with time and practice, just like everything else. Except the piano. I can only coax a tune in a mechanical sense--I know how to read the music, I know where the keys are, and I can play just like I can follow written directions. But as for having an ear for music and making it sound like music and not incessant pounding--no skills there.

But I digress...  One of the first things my mom asked me to make for her was a cover for her toaster.  Easy, I thought. So I drew it out, and I measured, and I added my seams, and it took me an entire evening and then some to make an extremely humble toaster cover. It was two different pieces of fabric (reversible!) with some bias binding around the bottom.  It fit, but was very plain:

Easy. But not so adorable (doesn't that sound like I just described a fast girl from high school or something?)

So now that it's two years later and I've made a gazillion different things and learned so much (thanks to many geniuses out there kind enough to share tips, tutorials, etc. with us newbies) she informed me that she wanted a new one, something pretty and nice looking (ooohh, burn!).  She asked me for this over the summer but one thing led to another and I never got around to it.  So last night, for want of a simple project, I made her a new one. She wanted it to be puffy, so there's fleece in there. She wanted it to be frilly, so there's lace trim.  And she didn't want something loud and obnoxious.  So a subtle print it was.  And here it is:

It reminds me a wee bit of a cake...

This time around I didn't try to force corners to fit where they didn't want to--I let them be gently rounded for a much softer look.  I used pins liberally so everything didn't get wonky.  And I think it came out pretty adorable.  It's still a toaster cover, nothing earth-shattering or wildly imaginative.  But it definitely shows that I've gotten a bit better.  And what did my mumsy say when she came downstairs this morning and saw it on her big old four slicer?  "I love it!  I'm going to take it off so I don't get anything on it."  Oy.