Monday 11 May 2015

Sew

Howdy chaps.

Just back to report on last week's sewing adventures. In the midst of the rain, I got an annoying sewing job done - involving replacing a zip on my husband's hi-viz bike jacket (I broke the zip, so I really had to fix it!) It is a major cobble - I broke two needles in the process, unpicked a lot of very wonky stitching but managed in the end to return the jacket to him with a functional zip. And, he was happy with that. Phew.

Once that was out of the way, I moved onto other things. I refashioned one of my old hoodies into a sweatshirt/hoodie for the bean. He's got lots of sweaters that are almost too small, so I hacked apart one of my sweaters to make something for him. I cut the sleeves off, the hood off and cut along the side and shoulder seams. Then I narrowed the back and the front by several inches (taking things in at the sides) and lopped a chunk off the top of the sleeve, using one of his other sweaters as a guide. After rejoining the shoulder seams, I set in the sleeves and joined the new side seams. The neck was very wide  - much too wide for my 8 yr old, and I couldn't find an easy way of reducing this because of the logo on the back and the kangaroo pocket on the front. [Note to self: these features make refashioning much more tricky!] I opted to reattach the original hood - just tucking a wee pleat in the centre back to make everything line up. The neckline is still super wide, but with the hood attached it's not very noticeable. 

The best bit. He loves it. A photo will follow at some point - but each time I try and take one he has covered the sweater in milk, or mud, or something splattery.

Just so you have something to look at, here is a stack of freshly stitched squares that I am making into a quilt top for my mum. The fabrics all came from my grandma, and a duvet cover she made for me when I was a teenager. 


The duvet cover was made from vintage fabric scraps from clothes and other household textiles in my nana's house. The duvet cover disintegrated a long time ago, and I've been trying to decide how to make the remnants into a quilt top for some time. Last week I finalised my design/approach, cut the squares to the right size and started to stitch. There are 100 patterned squares, and I chain pieced the lot while the children ate their supper the other night. Wowzers that was fast! Who knew?

There might just be a deadline with this one. My mum's birthday is at the end of the month, and they are coming to visit. Maybe I can get it done before then?



No comments:

Post a Comment