Pre-Flight Sewing

Something that can make you feel pretty amazing is when you notice the new jeans your daughter has just put on in the last half hour that previously had a "cool stressed knee patch" look, now have a "obvious hole in the knee" look. Well, maybe not that realisation, but ten minutes later when you have finished the emergency knee patch right before you walk out the door to fly to Japan you sure do. 

Rachel's jeans have the quickest turn around of mending I've ever made in any clothes. Usually, whatever needs some TLC languishes on my sewing desk for a few months at least before I can bother to do anything with it. Even the smallest fix needing the least amount of my time and effort. 

These however, got done in the speediest way I've ever worked. I actually sacrificed a perfectly good rectangle of fabric to cut a square off for the patch. The little cat that would end up peaking out of the hole in the jeans was well worth it. 

Jeans Quilt 3.0

It was time to finish it. I started it more than a year ago (see here). It lay around for a long time. I suppose these things take time, and a Jeans Quilt is no exception.

As intended, it's bigger than it's predecessors (Jeans Quilt and Jeans Quilt 2.0). It fits our queen bed with ease and is super warm. The jeans and pants came from everywhere. Some from Steve's sister Beck, others from people from our bible study (recognise them Valery?), some I don't even remember where from and then some of our own.

I am not sure when I finished procrastinating finishing the top, but it was done when I pulled it out at the start of winter. We were lucky to get the backing fleece for 30% off, because we needed a lot. It's not the prettiest of finishes, because of the thick denim and the batting and the fleece, but I don't mind. It keeps us warm.

Also, there was no way I could actually quilt the thing because it's enormous and heavy and my little Sally was struggling with just the binding. Oh well. I'm sure it will last as long as it needs to.

The girls love it, because they can lay it out, fold it in half, and they've got a great cosy warm place to play and hide in. Here is Rachel demonstrating:

I'll probably not make any more of these though, now that there is one for each of the beds, so I'll either have to think of a new way to use jeans or stop collecting them. Steve would probably vote for the latter. He might be right.... nah!

Denim

At the sewing machine again.

I actually had started this what feels like ages ago. It was week one or two of term (so back in July), and I was wandering around the house looking for something to do. With all of my assessment submitted (still haven't had everything marked yet), and all the kids settling into term really well, I didn't have anything to do! Madness!

Anyway, I promptly spent two weeks of spare nights cutting up jeans and shorts for another jeans quilt. Again, I'm working through carefully hoarded, I mean, collected, material and getting rid of stuff by actually using it, rather than letting it get dusty. I wish I had counted how many I cut up, because there were a lot. This one will be bigger than the other two, because I'm are aiming for it to fit the queen bed, rather than a single.

Anyway, after the cutting and measuring and recutting and remeasuring was done, it all sat around for a few weeks while I procrastinated. I didn't really have enough space to lay out the squares to get an idea of how it might come together, so I waited until I went to my parents place and did it there. Then it lay around for another couple of weeks while I procrastinated some more. This time I was thinking that it was going to take ages to sew everything together and I couldn't possibly do it while the kids were here because they would surely mess up the pattern and my layout etc.

Finally I bit the bullet. Steve was going to be out one night and I really wanted to get the pile of fabric out of the way before the kids did decide to investigate the bag it was in, on the floor, in the dinning room. And when I started, I got it done in about an hour and a half of sewing. Which is not long at all.

Despite that, it's not big enough. It needs at least another two strips of squares. I did a look through to see if I had any jeans left. I do, though the final two strips won't be as full of variety as the rest, because they will probably be out of the the same pairs of jeans, unless I want to unpick some of the other strips, which, let's be honest, is never high on the agenda. Anyway, maybe I'll put the half-completed-but-at-least-sewn-together quilt top away and procrastinate some more. I seem to have given myself some kind of wrist injury or RSI from being an parent-type-adult and I should probably rest it some more before I go cutting up things and doing more damage.

Denim Quilt

Notice I'm not calling it a Jeans Quilt? Because that would say it's similar to the other Jeans Quilts that have come before (see here and here). When in fact, it is not. It's still made of jeans, but also other stuff. And made in a different way. Thus, a different name.

Anyway. So you notice you have a pile of jeans like this lying around the house (or, more accurately, stashed in a cupboard, growing at an increasingly rapid rate). What to do, what to do!?

What else, but make a quilt! (Actually, there is loads of other things you can do with denim (see?), but quilts use lots of jeans in one go, which was the goal here.)

Anyway, I wish (as always) I'd taken more photos of the progress, but pretty much, you cut loads of circles out of denim and lots of squares of scrap fabric. You sew the circles together first and then put the squares of fabric in the middle. The way it all works out, the good side of the denim is the back of the quilt and the fabric side is the top. 

For this reason, this is a really cheep quilt to make. Because you don't need to buy batting (the stuff in the middle of the quilt), or binding, or backing fabric (which tends to be quite expensive because it's generally got to be quite large). Obviously it's not as warm as a quilt with batting in it, but because of the denim, it's still heavy and thus warm. 

This was the moment when I realised that even though I'd cut 120 circles and squares, I still needed twenty more of each, because the quilt just looked too short. Sigh. On the plus side, this is what the girls looked like at that point:

Which meant that getting the final bits cut and sewn wasn't actually that painful. Rachel did rouse herself to help me with the pins and sew parts as well. Sewing the squares in involves folding the flaps of the circles onto the squares and sewing around them. It gives the back of the quilt this fun floral circle pattern, which is nice.

It was hard to get a photo of this, not only because it is big, but also because when the girls saw what I was doing this happened:

I was running short on time and lighting (it was 4:45pm!) but I hope you get the idea.

I love looking at all the different scrap fabrics, again so much given to me by others! And some with long history - there is a scrap of fabric from the boxer shorts I made in grade eight Home Ec class! Yikes!

Ah fabric. From my mum, my friends, random strangers even! Fabric that I've seen the girls wear in dresses, or have used for their books, or bunting. Fabric that mum has in table cloths, or made me dresses when I was little.

Ok, I'll stop being nostalgic now and move on with life. Quilt made. Hope you like it.

Denim Again

Making another quilt. With denim. Yes! 

It was holidays, and I had seen an idea for this online, and I knew the amount of jeans I had horded, I mean stashed, I mean saved carefully for purposes such as this, was actually getting to be a little large. Culling had to be done! And it has.

Stay tuned for more quilting updates!

Memory Game

Another thing I made for the travel trip to Bundy was this awesome memory game. It was really perfect for Sophie to play with while Rachel was asleep. She understood the matching concept and had enough memory to actually play to win.

I had the jeans squares cut out already (I guess last time I made a quilt I cut too many (actually, I just had a look for the quilt that I would have cut them for and it's from August 2013! Yikes!) and then used some left over bed sheet scraps from the ABC Book. I used an old fleece Jetstar blanket that I had lying around for the batting and then just fun scrap material for the squares.

The exciting thing about these is that Rachel sewed with me for the first time when I was making them. Yep, Rachel sat on my knee while I sewed the straight lines and then helped push the reverse button and lift the presser foot. She didn’t last long, but she did sew with me. Yay!

Sophie helped with the zig zags on the edges sewing it all together. Fun times. I love these. They are a great way to use up my scrap fabric and were a quick sew. I might be making many more sets of these as presents in the future. Yes!

Storage

All is quiet on the sewing front. We had a big week of doing lots and giving Steve a great 30th Birthday. The week before, I did sew this rather quickly, but it then got busy and I didn't get around to taking photos or doing anything with those photos for a while.

Still, I thought I'd post it, because now it looks like I have done something of late.

It's a fabric storage box/basket/thing that fits under the play kitchen in the living room. The kids had been putting all that food stuff into shoe boxes (actually, they were rather better at taking it out of said shoe boxes). I went to a conference about early childhood and one of the speakers challenged us to rethink our play spaces and make them more accessible to the kids. Like putting things in baskets or bags so they can take them to where they want to play with them, rather than having them on shelves or in huge boxes. That was kind of my inspiration for this.

It's got a handle on the front so the kids can pull it out easily, and because it's fabric, it can fold as well. So if they want to take some food for a picnic - can do! Made of some lovely soft old denim jeans from the stash and some rather appropriate cake fabric from my mum, it's everything it needs to be.

Denim Skirt

The church bush dance was coming up. Every year it's a fashion dilemma. Bush means jeans and boots. Dance means spinning and twirling, which means skirt! Somehow for the last four years I've failed to come up with a suitable solution for this conundrum. No more is this the case!

I was actually thinking about making denim vest that I could wear along with a cool dancing skirt so that I'd have my token bush denim and still be dancing pretty. I looked online for vest patterns and ideas, but they all seemed fairly complicated. I also knew I was going to try to make it out of the plethora of old jeans I had stashed up (just in case I wanted to make a jeans quilt, or a painting apron in the near future you know?) so it wasn't necessarily going to be easy to cut out to start with. I was also running out of time. Two days to go.

Then I hit upon the idea of making a skirt using the jeans. As in, using the pre made and fitted top part of the jeans, slashing off the legs, making a new skirt bottom and then sewing that on. Volia! A skirt that I didn't have to sew zips or button holes for. Not a loose wrap skirt. It sounded good in theory, and I had so many jeans stored (I think twelve pairs (not all mine!)) that there was really no worry about getting it wrong the first time because I had plenty of material (even if I didn't have much time).

So I did it. And I love it.

I didn't get around to hemming it, given the time constraints, and it was just going to be part of the look anyway. Frayed is in right? I think it's fabulous. It could be the most perfectly fitting skirt I've ever made. So comfortable, and warm. Though the bush dance is now over, I'm still wearing it. Fashion be dammed, this is the best skirt ever.

Ok ok, maybe not, I'm sure it's got it's flaws, but I love it, and that's what counts. I mean functioning pockets on a skirt that didn't take three hours to put in!! YES!! What I saw in my head is pretty much what happened when I sewed. At first I made the skirt part too long (because I didn't really measure where I thought it would go on me, I just guessed it), but I just slashed off six inches and resewed it. Perfect! The length is great. Because it's heavy denim, I don't fear it flying up at the smallest gust of wind. It's twirly enough for a dance but modest enough to be worn whenever.

I found that cute lacy bit in a stash from my mum (I've got loads of it, it turns out). I think it helps with the bush dance feel, though maybe not the everyday fashion feel. Oh well. Functioning pockets remember!

Sophie helped me to sew the (re-cut) skirt bit onto the top, while the other three kids slept on Friday morning, which was very nice. She was excited to help me make a skirt. On the down side, as I was cutting the last threads off post sewing with her, she decided to show me that she knew how my sewing machine worked and proceeded to push the presser foot.

I know it's my fault that I didn't switch it off sooner, but now Sally seems to be broken thanks to this enthusiastic demonstration from Sophie. The joy at making this fabulous skirt is diminished by the sadness I feel when I think that I may not make another on Sally.

Maybe that's a bit melodramatic, but I was trying to put a quilt together last night and Sally won't even sew a stitch. I took things apart, and blew out dust, and rethreaded, and looked for possible reasons, but I can't see anything. She's just not sewing. Something is getting stuck and she just won't go. Sigh.

Today I will wear my lovely denim skirt and use it's awesome functioning pockets and twirl and dance with my girls. Maybe tomorrow I'll address the sewing machine issue.

It's Alive: Busy Book of the Year!

At last, the day has come where I can say that I'm finished! Get ready for a mammoth post about sewing something, because the thing I've been working away on for I've no idea how long, has come to completion. I would say that I probably spent less time on it overall than I did with the Picnic Activity Mats of last year, but I was making three of those at once. I think this has been in my head for at least six months. Everything has it's own time right? And the time is now!

Before I continue, I must give credit to whoever it is that blogs over at Forty-Two Roads. I saw this marvellous book on the Internet somewhere (pintrest or google or whatever) and it was really the starting point for my own book. No people, I don't think of these things all on my own. As one of my teaching prac teachers said once; "If someone else has made the worksheet, don't reinvent the wheel." Wise words.

Here is what it looked like on the floor as a work-in-progress. In short, it's an enormous cloth book that focuses on the fine motor skills needed to dress oneself properly in the morning. Doing up buttons, zips, buckles, etc, are just some of the amazing features. For added sentimentality and recycling purposes, each page is made out of firstly scrap fabric from my stash, and also old kids clothes, either from Sophie, or in the rare case or two, from the op-shop.

The cover was simply some green fabric I had in the stash that I quilted onto a piece of calico for strength. The inner cover is a remnant that I picked up on the cheap a while back. I did dream that it would one day make the skirt of a fun dress, but it fit perfectly, so I used it here. The words are embroidered onto a separate piece of fabric that was then bound and sewn on the front (slightly off centre I'm afraid). And I put the handle on before the book was finished being bound too, so it's slightly off as well, but I'm really thankful for it, given how huge the book turned out.

Page one is a dress that mum and dad bought Sophie from Thailand (I think) which she wore for a while, but was ridiculously short on her. The cute collar and scalloping on the buttons meant it was perfect to keep. The backing material is just from the stash.

Page two focuses on belt buckles on the skirt. The skirt itself is actually just material that I used to make Sophie's first Easter dress (not the actual dress) that originally came from some paediatric nurse scrubs from the US. The belt buckles I got off a pair of $4 shorts I picked up at Lifeline, and then I used some scrap material from a shirt I made for Sophie to put it all together. The backing material was from Sophie's Tent, though I also used it to make a shoulder bag. I've still got some left, so who knows what it will become next.

Page three is overall clips. I did have to get these overalls from Lifeline too, because baby overalls don't actually have overall clips. They have buttons (see here for an example). Which is all well and good, but I wanted overall clips, so to Lifeline I went. These were a size 4 that I cut down a bit. This was also the chunkiest page because I wanted the side buttons and pockets to still function as per usual. The backing material is from my stash, which I've actually used before to make a quilt, but apparently never took photos of. Strange.

Page four is snaps, using one of the girls old onsies. I know that more grown up clothes don't really have snaps, but I thought they'd be good practice anyway. The backing material was orginally from Rachel's quilt, which I've also used in the Duplo Bag.

This is a great chance to stop and tell you that I also did my best to sew the clothes in with as much usability as possible. You heard about it on the overalls page (with the pockets and buttons), but here on the onsie page, I've sewn only the back half of the outfit, so you can technically still wear it (though you'd also have the book attached to you...). Here is a photo of Bear wearing the onsie while Doll wears the jeans on the opposite page.

Page five is jeans. Again a pair of Sophie's that she wore to death and my mum patched a few times for her. This has a tiny zip and a button. The backing material is the same as page two.

Page six has Sophie's first Christmas Dress, which has a bow to tie as well as top ties on the shoulders. Lots of tying. Very sentimental and pretty. Backing material is the same as pages two and five.

Page seven, coming to the end, is shoes, teaching about velcro and laces. The pink shoes were from Steve's mum for Sophie (that she actually never wore) and were pretty easy to sew in. The other shoe is one of my old ones that I cut up and sewed in, much the same as Steve's old shoe which made it into the last Busy Book. Backing material again from the stash. I think it was another remnant that I got on the cheap.

The final page, page eight, is all about doing up hair. This was probably the trickiest page to put together, despite not needing to sew on bulky clothes. The material was all leftover scraps from dresses the girls have. The girl on the page originally looked bald at the front, and I am not sure you can really see the arm holding the mirror, but oh well. You get the point. Practice plaiting the hair and putting hair clips in. Easy enough. Backing material is the same as page three.

All of the pages were a medium weigh material, that I thought I should reinforce, so I sewed some other medium weight material on the backs of each page before I started anything else (it was kind of quilting practice and also kind of "use as many cool stitches on Sally as I can" practice). In hindsight, this was overkill. The book is now not only enormous (because of the size of the clothes), but it's also heavy. Very heavy. Thankfully, I had the foresight to put on that handle. But I also imagine it will mostly be played with at home. On the floor.

Sally the Sewing Machine did a colossal job getting though all of the thick layers, but in the end (just as I sewed the, rather thin in comparison, inside lining together, she started making strange noises. She's now at the shop getting a service. I did some hand sewing (the pages into the spine, very tricky because it was so thick) and then took the thing pinned and ready to go to mum's to finish the edge on Harriet the Husqvana.

The thing that I love most about this book is that I thought and thought for ages and ages about how to sew the pages together so that there would be no exposed seams and everything would be beautiful and evenly spaced. I had a brainwave about how to do it one night and it worked. Yes! There are things I'd do slightly differently (it's all about refining the process), but in the end, my crazy idea worked and that's what counts.

Thanks for reading this far! Feel free to comment and tell me that my hard work has not been wasted on a two year old who did actually want to help sew the pages in, or the eight month old who crawled all over my work as I was trying to photograph it.

Alternative Use

We had extra blankets out for bible study last night, and this morning, I had a brain wave to spread out the Jeans Quilt and let Sophie investigate. All those friendly functional pockets must be good for something right? I am right!

I got out all of her Noah's Ark animals and stuffed them in quickly. So funny watching Sophie find them all. She was a bit confused at first as to why the actual ark was empty. Such fun though. Jeans Quilt for the win!

Re-using Jeans

I have been so super slack about updating what I've been doing in the last few days/weeks. So many great things that are slowly fading into obscurity, just like my entire life will one day. Oh well. This, however, will not pass unmarked.  

I followed an on-line tutorial linked to me by a friend to whip this baby up in less than an hour. Luckily Steve had a pair of jeans that needed re-purposing in the circle of life, or this would have taken a while longer to become a reality. Only made one mistake in the making, and you can't even tell. Ha!

Here was where this tutorial came from. :)