Attention novices: Don't fear the needle

...Unless you're on death row.  Then, probably fear the needle.

So, you guys.  I bought a sewing machine!  A Real!Life! sewing machine, complete with thread and needle and all sorts of other fancy gadgets that I can't quite use yet.  At first, I was completely intimidated.  I read the manual.  Then I read the manual some more.  Then I set the manual on fire because it might as well have been written in Latin even thought the captions were all "EASY!" and "SELF-THREADING!" I was all I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT YOU ARE TRYING TO SAY and then I cried a little, got the matches and went out into the back yard to enjoy a little manual-flavored s'more action.  It wasn't until I went back inside and discovered that I still had no clue how to use my shiny new sewing machine that I regretted my impulsiveness.  Drat.

Then I sat down in front of The Machine, called my husband and, together, we played with it until we figured it out.  We threaded that bobbin.  Hard core.  

I know - you super awesome folks out there who are actually good at this sewing thing, you totally don't get me.  Because I had the fear, people.  The kind of fear that shook me deep down to my very core.  Okay, so I threaded my bobbin.  I threaded my needle.  Now I have to... um...  ...   ... why can't I stop crying I'm not even pregnant?! 

Yeah, that happened.  

But I finally grew the guts to grab some fabric, put my foot down (literally) and stitch.  One.  Two.  Three.  Backstitch three.  Forward again.  

Feeling the rhythmic hum of the machine.  Watching something emerge where once there was just random piece of fabric.  I've so been missing out. 

Sewing?  It's awesome.

And I'm not even good at it.  Even so, I did manage to make pillows.  And a table runner.  And they actually look like - you know - what they were intended to look like.  WIN!

If you know what you're doing, you should officially ignore this post.  Because I'm going to share the "pattern" for the pillows that I made, which is like so middle school if you've sewed more than three things in your life.  You can probably make gathers and use grommets (swoon!), while all I can do is straight stitch and just barely at that.  Don't rain on my super duper novice parade, I'm the grand marshal.

I swear I ironed these, by the way.  We just have a small dog who thinks she's the Queen of Sheeba and these pillows were made especially for her.  

Here's what I did for my 20 inch square envelope closure pillow covers:

:: Measure and cut one 20 inch square panel (front)

:: Measure and cut one 20 x 26 inch panel (back)

:: Iron, iron, iron

:: Cut the larger panel in half, giving you two 20 x 13 panels to make up the envelope closure in the back

:: Fold one long edge of each 20x13 panel, iron and sew the edge

:: Pin the panels together, wrong sides facing out, creating an envelope closure in the center

:: SEW!  Sew around all edges leaving a 1/4 in seam allowance 

:: Turn right-side out and iron some more

TA-DA!!!! I KNOW, RIGHT?!  It's a pillow!  (I was excited too.  While I was sewing, Casey was laying an entirely new floor in my bathroom, but I was super excited about the fact that I stitched two pieces of fabric together.  I WIN.)

So that's that.  Obviously, I'm pretty open to suggestion.  What are your favorite tips + tricks?  Help a newbie out!