Make and Mend 2011 - July (no pictures)

So I am hoping you will take my word for it that I have been mending for this challenge to make or mend five pieces a month.  I've mended a tear on the inside of a pocket on one of boyfriend's work pants, sewn closed a hole next to a back pocket on a pair of his shorts, and an almost identical hole next to a back pocket on a pair of my jeans. 

I'm working on formulating how to fix a split hem on another pair of boyfriend's shorts since I can't just take them up like I did his other work pants.  I'm thinking about putting the hem tape inside the split hem as close to the open edge as possible.  We'll see how that works out.

Still experimenting with making small drawstring bags.  I'd like to sell dice bags on my etsy shop if I can ever perfect the drawstring channel.  Maybe next one will work.

Mending #3 and #4

So my Make and Mend challenge is swimming right along since I had that mending to do for my father and a coworker asked me to fix something for him.  When you can sew and mend it sends out a subliminal signal that others can sense.  That and I was embroidering at work.  Whichever explanation you prefer.

Mending #3 was a sweater for my father.  The lesson with this one is don't rip out your tags.  Just don't do it.  Why?  It leaves a hole.  Of course.  Unfortunately, my mom didn't have matching thread so I volunteered to bring the sweater home with me since I was positive I had matching thread.  Nope.  Luckily when I swung by JoAnn's they had my fave thread: Gütermann for 40% off.  So I picked up some grey and invisible thread, just in case.

Below are the inside view with all my stitching and the outside view.  You can tell on the outside it was mended by the distortions in the knit lines, but the thing had a hole.  Not just a tear, an actual hole.  Couldn't just grab a pair of scissors to cut the tag out, then even if there was a mistake there would be a tear that is easy to close back up.  Nope.

Mending #4 is a Coworker Hoodie.  Apparently the kangaroo pouch on the front of his hoodie had come away on one side.  Luckily I had brought my father sweater to work for mending (though I didn't actually do it until I was home) - yay for long work hours - and the grey thread was also a perfect match for the hoodie.  In fact it matched so well I had to go slower than I would normally to make sure I wasn't sewing back over my previous stitches.  They were really hard to see.  Plus three layers of a thick knit with the pocket edge folded under.  It went pretty quickly for all that and the finished result is below.  It is actually a straight seam, it looks bent because I didn't take the picture until he put it on so he is holding it out for me.  I also included a smaller inset of what the original stitching would have looked like courtesy of the other end of the pocket.

Yay for mending.  Only one more project for the month.  Plus I need to get my third refashion in for the Refashion Nation.  So much to do, so little time.  Once my job lets up I'll have much more time to be creative.  For now I am stuck with smaller projects I can bring to work since this is where I am spending the bulk of my time.

Mending #2 and idea of #3

So it must be something about guys and the backs of their shirts.  Boyfriend has a polo shirt where he mysteriously tore a hole horizontally through the white stripe near the collar in the back.  The tag is fabric and sewn in totally in a large rectangle, so it wasn't that.  So mending #2 was just using white thread and sewing the raw edges back together.  Luckily the polo is a knit so I didn't have to deal with any unraveling.

Mending #3 is a similar situation on a grey sweater belonging to my father.  My mom didn't have thread that matched, so I took it thinking I did.  Well, yeah no, so when I was out at JoAnn's I picked some up.  Turned out Gütermann thread was 40% off.  So I picked up some invisible thread too.  Bonus.  I'll get to that when I have a chance.  Work is crazy right now.

Make and Mend #1 - for the boyfriend

Well, I didn't get much done today.  I did finally break out the stitch witchery (pic) to hem a pair of boyfriend's work pants.  They are the cotton twill wannabe-denim fabric that makes my machine wheeze.  I really need to get a sharper needle for fabrics like that.  For now though I am using the iron hem stuff to get the job done.

Of course I forgot to take a before picture.  I just cut right in.  The bottom edge of the hem had frayed through in several places and the bottom edge kept growing fringe.  Plus they were too long.  Boyfriend disagrees, but when you always wear the pants cuffed once to the point they are wearing a line, the pants are too long.

So I got out my trusty seam ripper - great fun on this project - and ripped out all of the neat little stitches holding the hem up.  Then I cut the hem allowance off.  The frayed through and worn edge made that a snap.  The stitching had left a track of little holes that made a convenient reference point for folding up a new hem since the current-new bottom edge was uneven from all the fraying.  I folded up to about 1/4" above the stitch line.  Two rows of bonding web in between, I went section by section around each leg.  Once I finished the hemming, I used more bonding web to put hem tape over the raw edge like so:

You can see the inside of the hem on top and the outside below.  Unfortunately, until I get the sharper needle I can't try to put a line a stitching to make the pants look natural.  For now they look like they were hemmed, but that is better than looking ratty I think.  Boyfriend will have to deal.  This saves him from buying a whole new pair of pants.  And they're the right length now, bonus!  If he wears through this hem I'll probably have to go all the way and cut them off for shorts.  I can't take them up any more or they'll look too short.  It's the little projects that keep you going between bigger stuff.