As if I don’t have enough hobbies to keep me busy, I’m learning how to sew!

Though I’ve always thought it would be great to be able to make my own clothes—or at least to be able to change the hems on my (always too short) trousers—I never had the gumption to actually buy a machine and teach myself how to do it.

But after a trip to the Creative Stitches & Hobbycrafts fair just over a week ago, I found myself in C&H Fabrics with my friends Relly and Steph, and Steph (who is an excellent seamstress) was looking at dress patterns, and Relly and I were looking over her shoulder and cooing at all the wonderful designs, and before you could say “Butterick,” we managed to cajole Steph into teaching us how to sew. We picked out a simple dress pattern and some fabric, and then the only hitch was my lack of a sewing machine—a problem which was quickly remedied by a subsequent trip to Argos.

I wanted to at least be able to thread the sewing machine on my own before going over to Steph’s for our first sewing session, so the day I got the machine was also the day I started my first little project: transforming my men’s XL Metropolitan Museum of Art t-shirt into something a bit more “girly.” With very little idea of what I was doing, I went after the gigantic shirt with my brand-new fabric scissors and sewing machine, and in a remarkably short period of time, I had a shirt I could actually wear out of the house. Success!

But the day before yesterday was the biggest success so far, because the day before yesterday, after three sewing sessions with Steph and Relly, I finished making an honest-to-goodness dress from scratch. A dress! It was tough going, and without Steph’s patience, encouragement and help there’s no way I would have gotten the thing done. But it was a great feeling to finish off that final hem—and an even greater feeling when I tried the dress on at home and found that it not only fit, but was actually quite cute as well. Success again!

So I’m on a bit of a sewing high right now; I’ve already bought another pattern (a skirt this time), and I’m hoping the sewing sessions can become something of a regular thing. I’ve never really done crafty stuff with other people before, and I didn’t realize just how productive—and how much fun—it could be. Bring on the next sewing bee!