Hello, everyone! I thought I’d do my first post just to introduce myself a bit. My name is Afton, I am a stay-at-home mom in my 30’s. I have been married to my husband for 12 years now and we have two beautiful children. Our oldest is 8 and our daughter is 4.5. My husband and I are high school sweethearts and have since become a military family when he joined the Air force in 2010.
Shortly after covid started I decided to take my son out of public school and home school him. My son was diagnosed with autism at age 4, when everything switched to online learning, he didn’t adjust well with the change. Since starting home schooling his learning has been back on track and he enjoys it as much as any 8-year-old does. While I never imagined becoming a home school mom and am not sure if this will be a permanent thing, it has helped in balancing out my son’s busy schedule between school and all of his therapies.
In the 2014 my husband went on his first deployment. Our son was 5 months old at the time, so we made the decision that I move back with my parents in Utah during that time, so I wasn’t all alone. Shortly after my husband left, when I wasn’t tending to my son and his needs, I found it hard to find things to do to help pass the time. My mom told me that I needed to find a hobby, so next thing I know I’m standing in Walmart picking out my first sewing machine.
I had no idea how to sew and neither did anyone in my family. With the help of my instruction manual and YouTube I quickly caught onto all the basics. I started out by making blankets my son, myself and family members. Looking back now I ask myself why I started with such a difficult fabric to work with… minky! It is so soft and cuddly, but it is so slick and messy (hello trail of fuzzy plush) to work with.
After I ran out of people to make blankets for, I moved to making accessories for Tula baby carriers. Anyone that had a baby around this time may remember all the craze with Tula. Moving to the baby carrier accessories really opened up a creative outlet for me and I loved it! I actually ran a business through Facebook selling these to other parents for a short period before I decided to take a step back and focus on my family as it was consuming a lot of my time.
My love for sewing moved to the back burner for a few years as we moved to a new state and expanded our family. Fast forward to early 2019, my daughter was about to be 2 and was obsessed with baby shark. I searched high and low for baby shark apparel for her to wear for her birthday and just couldn’t. I decided that I would try to make her a dress myself. I went to Joann to try to find some fabrics that would fit the baby shark theme (I wasn’t aware of all the amazing online shops yet)
My daughter has been in love with the color pink for as long as I can remember, I found a pink cotton fabric with a cute, scalloped design on it that I picked for the skirt portion of her dress then went with a solid white knit for the bodice portion. With the help of one of her RTW (ready to wear) tops, I self-drafted her dress. With the help of my Cricut Maker I added a cute shark design with the saying “baby shark is two two two”. It was far from perfect, and it took me a day or two to make because of lots and trial and error but I was excited when I completed it and my daughter loved it, which in the end is all that really matters. Looking back at this I often ask myself how I managed to make a dress having no idea what I was doing and just winging it. It reminds me now that I often get stuck doing is overthinking it. If you really put your mind to something that you want and don’t let yourself stand in your way you can do anything.
After completing my daughters dress, I knew that my true passion with sewing is clothing. Since that moment I’ve never looked back. I discovered the Facebook sewing community and all the pdf patterns available. I’ve learned so much along the way and have loved every minute. I now mostly work with knit fabrics but have made it my goal for this year to become more comfortable working with woven fabrics again. I look forward to sharing all of my future creations and hacks with you on here.
Until next time,
Afton
Sew what, with Afton 