Monday, May 3, 2010

Monday Again?

I'm so not ready for it to be Monday. The weekend flew by and I didn't spend very much of it in the sewing room. We rented a chainsaw on Friday so that we'd have two for the weekend and the guys could do double-time cutting up the fallen tree. I supervised. ;-) What that really means is that I was outside supervising the dogs while the men worked.

That chore is mostly done. There's still a big "stump" (not in the ground) that will need to get towed out, but that will be next weekend. Even though the guys wanted to do that right away, I reminded them that attaching the straps to the trunk and then to the truck won't cost us a rental fee and to use the rented chainsaw to the fullest instead of spending time on the trunk. See, I supervised. What would they do without me? LOL!

Saturday night with all those logs meant a big bonfire. DS#2 had a bunch of friends over and they burned up at least half of that tree. The fire is still going. Who says green wood doesn't burn? ;-)

Sunday I did spend some time in the sewing room, but it was mending a pair of DS's much-loved shorts, which really need to be tossed but instead I keep patching them up. It makes him happy and saves me buying another pair just yet.

I also dug out a stand-by project. A few years ago (2006!!), I made DS#2 these jeans:



He wore them a lot, until he grew taller and they were too short. I offered to cut them off into shorts but he thought they wouldn't work as shorts. Don't ask. I knew better, but I didn't argue, and set them aside. With the other pair of shorts in the sewing room to be fixed, I decided to pull out those jeans and compare waist sizing. Surprisingly, it seemed that the old jeans would still fit his waist. I measured the inseams on the shorts and cut the jeans legs off. And then, before I expended further energy and thread, I called DS into the sewing room to try on the cut-offs. He agreed that they would actually work as shorts (finally!) and was as surprised as me that they still fit around him. He's obviously grown up but not out. Wish I could say the same. Ahem. Anyway …

DS also mentioned that he really likes his shorts to have side pockets. It must run in the family because I love side pockets on my capris. I looked at the cut-off leg pieces on the cutting table and decided that I could squeeze some pockets out of them. I use the sideseam topstitching as a "design feature" and cut the pockets so that stitching would run down the middle and line up with sideseams on the now-shorts.

Apparently, they were a hit. He wore them out to dinner last night and also to school this morning. I didn't get a pic yet, but I'll make him pose when he gets home and update later.

And, speaking of capris … Mine are nearly done. Have been for a week. But I wanted to run them through the washer/dryer before committing to buttons/buttonholes in the waistband because they felt a little loose and stretched out. I'm thinking they really need to be taken in at the waist (sigh) but I'm not sure if I'm up for removing and redoing all the topstitching/serging to do it properly. I may just cheat and run some elastic through the back waistband facing. I haven't tried them on again since they came out of the dryer. Maybe it will have been a miracle laundry load. Yeah, right.

Next up on the list will be another pair of shorts for DS. While he was in the sewing room he spotted the striped fabric he wanted me to make shorts from a while ago and gave me The Pleading Look that I can't resist. But now that I know the pattern still fits and I won't have to trace it again, these will be an easy make. Especially now that I have a topstitching station, which worked great BTW when re-making DS's jeans into shorts. I had used actual jeans topstitching thread on those and that stuff was a PITA on my D1, but a dream on the 6010. Woot!

Wow. That was chatty for a Monday, wasn't it? ;-) Have a good week everyone. I hope to update my blog soon with the Plus blog links you've been sending. Thanks and keep 'em coming!

8 comments:

  1. Chatty in the best of ways. :-) Have a lovely Monday!

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  2. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for the comment about jeans top stitching thread on your D1. I thought I was going to die when I said I would hem a pair of pants for my son's girl friend. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong, and of course they were standing right there visiting with me! Next time I will try my straight stitch only Juki and I bet it will be a different story. Don't worry about chatty, if you hadn't been you might not have mentioned the top stitching situation.

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  3. How nice that your sons trust your judgement in clothes! At least one of my sons tells me I'm an idiot who couldn't clothe a dog. Then I remind him that he's an unemployed college grad who shouldn't talk too much. Glad you were supervising the chain saw work; they clearly needed someone to take control!

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  4. Don't you hate to have to rip out a waistband? What a pita. Good luck on these.
    Which jeans topstitching thread are you talking about please?

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  5. I love a chatty Monday. :) Sounds like you got more sewing done than you realised. It just wasn't for you.

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  6. Nice catching up with you! Seems like you were stitching denim overtime in addition to supervising tree trunk--and dogs.

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  7. When I was reading the part about not wanting to rip out the waistband, all I could think about was chainsaw versus seam ripper... Sometimes it's easier to rip out a tree than it is to rip out stitches! Maybe if my seam ripper had a powerful roar like a chainsaw, I wouldn't mind reverse sewing quite so much. :-)

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  8. Bit ot but here goes - have been advised your coverstitch tutorials are v v v good. Have just got a coverstitch machine but your links are broken:( Are they stored somewhere else now?

    TIA

    PS love love love the blog!

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Thank you for each and every comment. I appreciate them all, but I have to be honest and let you know that I'm usually bad about answering questions. I hope you understand that there just isn't enough time in the day to do everything I want to do.

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