Starting Out Savvy » sewing

Best $3 Ever Spent

Jamie Lee — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:00:38 +0000

This is about to get really personal: somehow both Peter and I have a knack for tearing holes in jeans. I don’t know how each of us does it, but it happens. The worst part is that the last time I ripped a pair of jeans, I had no idea it happened until I was digging in the laundry to put them on again. Now I have images of myself walking through my office with all my co-workers whispering behind my back…. Hopefully the washing machine is at fault. Anyway, while out and about on one of my Target excursions I happened upon these:

Iron on patches seemed much easier to use than having to sew patches myself, especially since I’m still so new to my sewing machine .

I had these with the mystery tear.

And a pair that tore a long time ago. (This tear was too massive to not notice when it happened.)

I’m happy to say that the process was quite simple and it worked like a charm. Basically you just turn the clothing inside out and arrange the hole so that the ends of the fabric meet. Press it throughly with a warm iron, taking extra care to press the edges down well.

I think they turned out really well. I was worried about wearing them to work because I was afraid that the patch would fall off and I’d be stuck all day trying to hide my bottom, but everything has worked out OK. I will say that the patch on my Rock & Republics is starting to come off around the edges on the inside os the jeans, but I also had to piece together three separate patches to cover the giant hole. Overall, it has stretched the life of my jeans which is definitely worth the $3 that I spent.

What inexpensive things have you found to facilitate your life?

Slipper Makeover

Jamie Lee — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:00:36 +0000

This tutorial was the reason that I fell in love with ~Ruffles and Stuff~. I saw the picture of these perfectly embellished slippers and I swooned. I was uncertain about my sewing skills but the tutorial seemed so easy and I had confidence from my recent success of making a tutu, so I went for it. I left work and went straight to store, after store, after store searching for everything I needed. When I finally got home, I was so burnt out that I left the materials hanging in a bag on our closet door.

But last week, while Peter was out of town I pulled them out and decided to give it a try. Amazingly, it turned out really well. Here’s the boring before:

And here’s the amazing after:

If you want to do try it yourself, here’s what I did. I started with basic Isotoner slippers. I bought mine on sale from Kohls. I cut the seams to remove the the little bows from each slipper. Using a white cotton, peach cotton, and gold tulle I created three flowers for each slipper. I was a bit concerned about this step because I didn’t know how to make fabric flowers. I learned that several wavy circles stacked on top of each other works out pretty well.

Then fold each flower in half and sew a small little “x” into it. This keeps the flower together, without taking away its movement.

Finally, add three champagne pearls and sew the flowers on to the slippers.

Now prance around your house and relish in the femininity of your new slippers!!

Have you guys found any tutorials that you just had to try? How’d they go?

Oooh, New Toy!!

Jamie Lee — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:00:31 +0000

You’ll have to excuse me, I’m just a little bit distracted. You see I found this great new (read old) toy in the storage room at my mom’s house.

Don’t you just love the old manual?

I’m trying to make this project for my friend who recently hurt her neck, but I’m having issues with my bobbin. I’ve read a bunch of great tutorials but somehow when loading my bobbin the thread fails to magically bring itself up to the top of the machine. If you don’t sew then I might as well be speaking gibberish, but if you do and you somehow know what I’m doing wrong then please fill me in.