One of the places they like to travel is Antarctica, which is very cold, so on the expeditions they have been on, they also get an appropriately warm travel jacket to go with. They have one for every adventure to some very cold places, but very little use for these jackets post travel because they are living in Brisbane. These jackets, I'm sad to say, have become a rather bulky addition to their spare room cupboards.
Dad took me in one day last year and asked if I could cut them up and make "something". He didn't really know what, but he figured I could use the fabric and patches to make something slightly more usable than their current state. I'm not one to pass up the opportunity to sew, so I said I would think of something.
The only before photos I have are of the girls wearing these jackets, and this little video clip is much more fun than the photo. Behold the jackets, before I cut them up. I hope you are amused.
After ripping all the seams open and taking the outer fabric off I realized there was so much fabric in just one jacket that I wouldn't even have to open the other at all. I did take some of the patches off though, some I reused, but not all of them.
The other thing my parents love, as well as travel, is hosting people at their house. My mum is Greek, so there is always a lot of food involved. Both of my parents wear aprons when they cook, so I decided to make them each an apron out of the fabric from the jackets.
I used the back panel for one apron, and the front for the other. I had to use a bit of the sleeve pieces to pad out, but that was fairly easy. Because the front of the jacket had previously had a zip in it, I simply sewed that seam closed again to make the apron, and top stitched down both sides, for coolness I guess. I also managed to keep the zip pockets from the front exactly as they were - working and everything!
I stitched on some of the patches to the front as a feature, used some more of the red ribbon from our extension warming party for the ties (still have some left!) and I fully lined it with some bed sheet I found in the cupboard. I'm really glad I did that last step, because when I was looking at them just sewn they looked really messy, but once I had lined it and flipped it right sides out, they suddenly looked amazing.
Mum knew I was making aprons, because I asked to borrow one that she used as a template. Dad had no idea, and what Mum didn't know was that I had made one for her too. Here they are on Christmas with their aprons on. I think they like them.
Here is my dad at his BBQ ready to do some cooking.
Presents like this make me glad I can sew.
No comments:
Post a Comment