Fall sweaters and unwanted guests

Firstly, I apologise (again) for the lack of posts on the blog. My personal goal was to post two, hopefully three entries each month, and I failed in September. The machine is fixed and I've been sewing, just no projects I considered blog-worthy. Thus the silence. I am slowly sewing up a shirt for my husband. I really want to do it right so I am taking my time, making a muslin, measuring twice, and cutting carefully. It has been a slower than usual project.

To the topic of this post... Fall sweaters and unwanted guests.

A few years back I made us a few thick wool sweaters for the fall. Actually, I initially made my husband a sweater as a gift, but it became mine because surprises don't allow you to easily measure someone.  :)  It's a beautiful thick zip-up sweater with pockets, and big enough for me that it makes a great 'jacket'. Still needing to make my husband his own sweater, I took all of his wants and dislikes and knit a newer, and more appropriately sized, sweater, complete with hood, wooden buttons and a tree.

 

 The tree design was created from scratch because I couldn't find the right tree pattern anywhere. It was easy actually. I drew a tree, and then using teeny-tiny graph paper, I 'traced' the tree drawing by colouring in squares on the graph paper. From there, I used the chart to count colours in my rows as the back of the sweater was a straight forward stocking stitch. Ta-da! I do have plans to add a lining to my husband's sweater so he can wear it more year-round. But that is yet to come.
So, that's the story of the two beautiful sweaters.

Until I went to wear mine for the first time this fall...

Holes. Where there shouldn't be holes. Oh no. I searched more, and there was a whole chunk of the waistband missing on my husband's sweater! And more holes!  We had (have?) moths.  The hours of work that went into these! So we searched out and plucked those little moth larvae from the sweaters and hats and mitts that had not been stored away (as good wool garment owners should). And we froze and washed and dried and plucked more. There has been no more hole development, so I think they may be gone for now, but from what I read, you can never be certain you are completely rid of them. We just need to be extra careful.

(Source)

So I am now in the process of patching, re-knitting and fixing the sweaters. They are looking a little worse for wear; I am not as good a patcher as I am a knitter (and even that is very basic), but they are still warm, and now clean.

Lesson learned: wash and store away your woollies in the summer. With cedar if possible. And kill remove the moths that trick their ways indoors. Hopefully we'll still get more wear out of these sweaters before the moths attack again.

Whatever happened to those comfy pair of jeans?

I promised you here that one day I'd show you my jean 'collection'. Well, since my sewing machine is given me headaches (not picking up stitches), I thought I'd share the collection instead.

So, whatever did happened to those comfy pair of jeans? Those that I've worn out, I've stashed away in boxes like this:

 Then they are disassembled and stored here and here:

 

And then finally they get made into something usually like this:

A shopping/utility/multi-purpose bag! Personally, I enjoy using them way more than the cheep ones sold at the grocery store. Each bag has it's own personality; I add in drapery fabric from a sample book I was given. They are great to use too because they have the same weight and (usually) texture as the jeans.

This funny hobby originated from my favourite jeans about ten years ago. You know, those pair that are incredibly comfy, you wear them all the time, and then they slowly start to deteriorate and so you add a patch here, and there. Then they rip more, and you hand stitch them there and here, and add another patch to reinforce the old ones too. And then those pants deteriorate so much that one day while doing maintenance work, you hear a RRRIIIIPPPPP, and you know that the only you will wear these pants anymore is with a pair of leggings underneath. (And you do too, because you work at camp, and this is totally acceptable).

But one day, those jeans must retire. And myself, having artfully stitched and patched those pants, couldn't bear to toss them. So instead I cut them up and made my very first jean bag. (The yellow plaid was even the patching material I had used over and over).

And I still use it years later! I have made many more, so many I couldn't take pictures of them all. But every part of the jeans are used. The back pockets are used on the insides, belt loops for decorations, and the waist bands (the most valuable part) are used as the handles. (You always need two pairs of jeans to make one bag...)

The material gets used for the obvious, and even the thick seams of the jeans I will cut out and weave together and make funky bags.

Family and friends started donating their old jeans to me, and now I've made many projects with denim, including a quilt (a gift: Thanks for the picture D.), hot 'plates', coasters and even a computer case (unsuccessfully).

It's a heavy fabric, and can be a pain to sew the thick seams, but I enjoy the results more. And the fact that my old favourite jeans can still be used. That's some great upcycling for ya!

Math revisited...

  "Why will I ever in my life need to know the formula for the circumference of a circle!?!" Little-Squirrel asks.

"Well one day," answers Big-Squirrel from the future, "in the distant future, you will want to make yourself a skirt and that darn formula will help you calculate the waist and the diameter of a whole skirt!" 

Little-Squirrel just rolled her eyes. "Sure, whatever."

Guess what? I number-crunched my very own half-circle skirt! It was not as complicated as it sounds, though, I did enjoy math as a kid. I will try to explain without making it too complicated...

I measured my waist (plus 2 inches) for the half-inner circle; only half the circle is my whole waist measurement. And then doubled it to get a whole circle's circumference.

Then using the handy-dandy formula C=2πr, I calculated the radius of the waist and made a small circle with that radius from paper (inner circle in diagram). I folded the small circle in half and decided on the length of the skirt. I measured the length from the edge of the half-circle and drew another larger circle, cut the smaller circle away, and there it was: my very own, made-for-me, pattern.

The waist band was two long rectangles. I attached them to the slightly gathered skirt-waist by sandwiching the skirt between the waist pieces (right sides facing in), stitching, folding them up and hand stitching the top edge (I didn't want any top stitching to show).

I added a lining using the same (but shorter) pattern  out of a lightweight white cotton and inserted an invisible zipper. Hand stitching the hem took awhile because of the rounded edge of the skirt, but I enjoyed several Olympic track events and some swimming.

I am really thrilled about this skirt. It's a nice light weight for the summer and it feels just so great.

Stripes: Part Two

 

A striped Kirsten kimono t-shirt for the summer! This is a simple free pattern from Maria Denmark, and I am so in love with this shirt! We've had some very humid days this past week and this shirt was very light and super cool to wear.

The pattern consists of a front and a back. That's it! Unless you decide to bind the neckline (which I did not) so it went together very fast. I used my double needle to top stitch the hem, sleeve and neck lines for a nice simple finish.

Check out Scruffy Badger's site to find many versions of this shirt. I especially love the birds-on-a-line version. I hope to get a chance to make a few more, but first I need to go in search of some knits. I am thinking I may try to add thick sleeve bindings on my next one...not sure how that would turn out on a kimono style shirt...

This pattern is so quick you'll even have enough time to play with the dog. Lucky guy.   :)

Stripes: Part One

A striped dress fit for a wedding. Actually, two weddings!

I fell in love with this material as soon as I saw it. And it's quilting cotton. (Tilly has a great post on sewing with quilting cotton, here). I loved the colours, the stripes and even the price. Until the clerk cut the fabric and gave me the bill... um... definitely more than I was planning to spend per yard. The fabric was not labeled clearly enough... the real price was hidden beneath the fabric in the bolt. I loved it anyways, but the pressure was now on to make a great dress!

So I started with sketches. I couldn't figure out how I wanted the stripes to lie originally, and I also had to figure out how cutting the pattern out would affect the way the stripes matched up later.
 Stripes are not easy to sew with. Surprise! Oh, didn't you know? Matching the stripes on the circle skirt wasn't too bad, it's when it came time to add darts to the bodice that I was the most concerned. Thankfully, with a very helping mother to help with fit, we were able to puzzle out this dress.

The pattern was adapted from one my sister passed down to me from a beautiful dress she made herself for a wedding! It must be that kind of dress. I love the full circle skirt; it's so much fun to dance in and twirl in, but watch out for those breezes!

I added a keyhole to the back of the bodice with a button made by my sister. I really wanted to find a way to display the button, and as long as I wear my hair up, I think I've been successful. It's a wooden button cut from a branch from an old walnut tree from my Grandmother's backyard. Even more special.

 Well, after all the worry about fit and stripes, the only concern I had on the days I wore the dress were... wrinkles. Darn. Cotton wrinkles when you sit on it.

 But if you dance fast enough no one will ever notice.  ;)  Cheers!

Jeans for the summer

I received some hand-me-down jeans from a friend a few weeks back and with the summer weather starting to peak I thought I'd alter some into a pair of capri pants. Easy-peasy! I just tried the pants on, marked them and then cut at the desired length.

I did add slits on each leg just about 2 inches long to add extra movement to the legs. I seem ripped up to where I wanted and then pinned the new hem in place to hold it. I did reinforce the bottom of the seem on the side leg just to prevent any unwanted seem ripping. I used a golden heavy weight jean thread to top stitch the cuffs and the slits like traditional jeans. I used bright red thread to top stitch the top of the slits to add a colour top stitching detail which copies a similar original detail on the bum pockets.

  

A fairly easy upcycling project for a new pair of pants and I've already gotten a lot of wear out of them. Maybe one day I'll share my rediculous jean collection with you...and no...they are not found in my wardrobe.  :)