Draft excluder
The first thing I ever planned to make was a draft excluder as our hallway is freezing. I had to wait until now to make it, though, as I ordered my fabric from Abakhans, the fabric shop of Manchester. 8 million weeks later and it arrived… It’s actually doing a great job of blocking the drafts in the hall – blocking anything in the hall, because the bargain box I ordered is actually a box. A big, massive, box.
Everyone said ‘do a draft excluder first’. ‘It’s easy peasy,’ they all said. ‘No one can mess it up’, they said. ‘It’s just a straight line!’. It’s not easy peasy, someone can mess it up, and straight lines are hard!
This is what I did:
♥ Measure the door’s width. Add a couple of centimetres for seams. Cut fabric to desired length and width. As a side note here, how on earth do people cut big pieces of fabric in straight lines?! Is there some special trick to it?
♥ Once the initial rectangle was cut I folded my fabric again, so the ends would match, as I wanted curved ends. Um, of you want cut ends I’d advise using a pattern to trace. I didn’t.
♥ Sew the long end together. Again, I found this really hard as it was so long! And even though I’d pinned it, the top bit of fabric kept moving so the bottom piece ended up about half a centimetre to the right of the bottom piece, which was annoying.
♥ Sew one end together. I sewed a great curved line! The only problem was it didn’t match the curved line I’d cut…
♥ Turn it right way out. I stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff, stuffed with some yucky tartan fabric that came out of the bargain box, and another bit of an old granny’s scarf fabric that was in there too. Then realised the thing was so stuffed I couldn’t get the other end in to the machine to sew. I couldn’t be bothered to hand sew, so I crammed all the stuffing down until I had enough ‘loose’ fabric to get in the machine.
In the last photo, you can see the wonderfully shit inventive post-catcher that Hubs invented once I’d gone back to work, and the dog kept eating the post in protest. I’m planning on re-making/covering it in fabric that matches the draft excluder, but we’d like to improve on the design a little first.
The drawstring bag that never was
This post is slightly delayed because I lost my camera lead. Then I found it, but lost my camera. Then I knew where both were, but they were far from my laptop. Then I sewed something else and needed to get those pictures off my camera and this post written before I could write the next project up.
After only two previous sewing projects, I’d accumulated a load of fabric scraps. I kept them thinking they’d surely come in useful one day (they will, won’t they? Or am I just hoarding for hoardings sake?) So I decided to make a drawstring bag as practice, and the end result would be useful. Deal! And how hard could a drawstring bag be…?
I planned to make a sort of pouch affair, with a circular bottom you know? Like an old merchants coin purse. I thought it would be easy; a circle of material for the bottom, a long strip for the sides, and casing for the drawstring – of which I had none, so I was mentally running through all of Hubs’ clothing to, ahem, borrow from.
I picked some of the nice, stiffish material that I’d bought from Ikea:
This is what I did:
♥ Using two slightly differently sized plates, I drew a circle on the wrong side of the fabric. I wanted two circles as I find it easier to sew a chalk line and knew I couldn’t hand draw that.
♥ Cut a rectangular strip of fabric that’s the length of the circumference of the circle. In hindsight, this is probably where I first started going wrong. Maths and measuring things isn’t really my forte.
♥ I made a casing for the drawstring, leaving about a 2cm gap to thread the drawstring in.
♥ I sewed the two ends together to make a tube.
♥ Pin the circular base to the bottom (the end without the casing) of the tube. This is where it starts getting tricky… You might want to stop following my directions about now. Because what I did was: realise that my tube was too long for my circle.
Then I had a minor tantrum and decided that I didn’t really want a drawstring bag anyway, I wanted a normal bag. So I sewed the sides up.
♥ I realised it needed some form of closening device, so I used some stick on velcro that I had. Unfortunately, as I’ve just discovered, this only stuck on one side. C’est la vie.
So this is the drawstring bag that never was. I need to get better at measuring. And cutting. And pinning. If anyone can find a use for a long, thin, not held together bag, please let me know!
Sleeve trousers
I’m on a trouser roll this weekend! That will all change next week though, as I’m back to work after 10 months maternity leave. Well done to me for discovering a new time-consuming hobby a week before going back to work *rolleyes*
I’ve made Bubs another pair of trousers. That little man is going to be the Trouser King of the North West. People will flock to see his trouser collection. Maybe we can charge an entrance fee and earn our fortunes that way. Anyway… Trousers made out of sleeves. There’s a couple of instructions out there already, but this is how I did them.
This is what I did:
♥ Choose a long sleeve top that you want to transform. I used one of Hubs’ old zip up tops, as modelled in its former incarnation (note: I did have permission to do this!):
♥ Lay it out flat and cut both sleeves off, making sure there’s enough length for the trouser leg plus waistband allowance (the sleeve cuff/trouser hem won’t need hemming because of the positioning)
♥ Lie both sleeves with the straight edge on the outside. Using some existing trousers as a guide, make a mark on the inside seam which will become the crotch. Now, this is wear I started getting unstuck. I cut straight down the seam and then tried to match up the new seams afterwards. If I was to do this again, I’d cut a curved line from crotch point to waistband using the existing trousers as a guide (similar to yesterday’s 10 minute trousers).
♥ After several hours minutes of blood, sweat and toil, I ended up with this, which is pretty wonky but the best I could do without throwing the whole thing away.
So yes, definitely cut a curved line to begin with.
♥ At this point, I had to make a little seam on the sleeve cuffs as Hubs seems to be particularly hard on his cuffs. It must be a man thing. Sewing the front and back seam is where I made my second big mistake on these trousers. I foolishly took the pins out, assuming that I could hold the material in place with my fingers, while feeding it through the machine. Ha.
Still, you live and learn and the trousers are for Bubs again, who’s about due for a growth spurt so I won’t have to look at it for too long.
♥ Sew a casing for the elastic at the waistband, leaving a centimetre or two gap to thread the elastic through.
♥ Finished! Admire handiwork and find a small person to model for you.
There you have it, a brand new pair of trousers refashioned from a shabby old top. These took me just under 2 hours which takes into account the fact these are only my second ever ‘make’ and my couple of big mistakes. I imagine the next time I make these it’ll take about an hour.
10 minute trousers
I decided my first* sewing project would be Petchy’s 10 minute trousers which promised speed and simplicity and had the advantage over other ‘for beginners’ projects as I could use an old sheet for fabric. The added bonus is that they’re for Bubs who, at 9 months old, is too young to refuse to wear any monstrosity I made. In time, young Padawan…
They took me a good hour and a quarter. Although, in fairness, I did spend a substantial amount of time trying to get into the 3 brand new sewing kits I bought from Aldi this morning. And trying to remember how to thread the sewing machine. And finding the camera.
This is what I did:
♥ Cut 2 pieces of fabric big enough to accommodate the trousers. Place them right side facing [a good thing about the old brushed cotton sheet I used is that it didn’t really matter if I got this wrong, as both sides were nearly the same]
♥ Fold both pieces in half, still with right sides facing. Fold a pair of existing trousers that are the required size and use them as a guide to cut out the basic trouser shape, then unfold. Make sure you leave seam allowance at all edges.
♥ The back of the trousers need to be higher than the front to accommodate a bum (and in this case, a nappy), so cut a slanted line from front to back. I had a 4cm difference.
♥ Sew both curved edges. I used a very basic straight (ha!) stitch. These become the front and back seam on the trousers. Readjust the fabric after sewing to make the trouser shape.
♥ Sew the leg seams. Start at the bottom of one leg, over the crotch, and back down the second leg. At this point I was tempted to finish while the going was good. However…
♥ I folded hems for both legs of equal sizes. Then had a minor paddy as I couldn’t work out how to fit the tube into the sewing machine to stitch them. If anyone has any tips on that they’ll be gratefully received! I managed, but the lines are wonky and the material puckered. Still, this is why Bubs is my guinea pig. I used a basic zigzag stitch for this.
♥ I made 4cm casing for the waistband, identical to the hem. You need to leave a gap at the back for the elastic to be added, but I forgot to do this and had to unpick the stitches using a stitch unpicker that was in 1 of the Aldi kits. Get in!
♥ Thread the elastic through the casing (this is easy to do if you pin a safety pin to one end and use that to push through the casing. Just don’t let go of the other end…) I sewed the elastic ends together to make it a bit more secure than a knot.
♥ Find your victim, willing or otherwise, and make them pose for victory photos.
And there you have it: 10 minute trousers in an hour and a quarter. Wonky lines, twisted elastic and puckered fabric – I love it all!
Little Sew & Sew 