Pattern Haul

I recently accepted a giant bag full of fabric from boyfriend's parents (used some for the lining to my new denim bag) but inside there was also a decent stack of patterns in the bag too.  I haven't had chance to look through them properly but there seems to be a lot of excitingly seventies styles, unfortunately my preliminary scan suggest that none are in my size :(  But it's hard to tell as sizes have changed so much, and people have changed so much (for example I have made a dress with a 26"waist that fitted, I do not have a 26" waist as it would have required me to carry my internal organs around in a bag, but it was a hippie pattern from ye olden days and the "waist" size was actually about 6" higher than a modern waist measurement) so I will have to see what the measurements are and where they are taken from.


I particularly like these two, firstly for the awesome 70's hair, and secondly because those two women in the front are clearly bitching about the lame girl behind them.

Olympic Banner

Hastily Made whilst watching the preamble to the Olympic Ceremony from an old pillow case and scrap fabric:

New Denim Jeans Bag

I made a bag from an old pair of jeans many moons ago and the denim has finally started to wear through- it's possible I've been over stuffing it!  So I used a donated pair of jeans from boyfriend to make a new one.   This one I made a lining with pockets to strengthen the body and also to give me some inside pockets- I found with my old bag it was slightly nightmarish to find my keys etc as everything fell to the bottom and they got lost.  I did have a zombie pirate keyring that helped me find them but I recently decided to retire him.

Step 1- cut off the jean legs to create world's shortest cut offs.
Step 2/3- Sew the bottom of the legs
Step 4- Create the lining by simply copying the shape and size of the real bag, and hemming the top
Step 5/6- Look at essential items for bags to work out pocket sizes, cut out pockets lightly bigger than needed, hem the top edge of pocket then sew the other three edges (after turning them under the hide the raw edge) to the right side of the lining.
Step 8- Attach lining to bag, overlap edge of bag and edge of lining (both turned right side out) and sew
Step 9- This step is step 3, I am having an incompetent day!
Step10/11- Voila, I also tied an old belt around the belt loops to make the straps.

Studded Jeans

Well I'm not sure these jeans are the most flattering but I inherited them from boyfriend whose magnificent runners legs could not squeeze into them any more.  Also he had managed to burst open the crotch thusly:

As you can see it took me 4 patches to cover the holes!  I cut the bottoms of the jeans to make the patches so the denim mostly matches, although it is a slightly different shade as the bottoms were less worn than the crotch.  I was planning to cut these into cut offs but I don't the fit of the jeans would translate into very flattering shorts so I'm leaving them long for now.  Should we actually get a summer I may rethink this.

I bought some pyramidical studs from ebay to put on the jeans, they have spikey teeth that you push through the denim, then fold over to hold onto the jeans- I used a knife to bend them to save my delicate hands.  I didn't have enough to cover a whole leg, or even the top front of some cut offs so I just did a patch shape on the front.  Perhaps if I buy some more (and let's face it I will be studding everything from now on) I will cover more of the leg.

Felt Tie-Fighter

After a few weeks of looking at an increasingly crumpled paper tie-fighter prototype I finally got my act together and made one from felt.   A tie-fighter, btw, is a flying hexagonal thingymabob form Star Wars much loved by Star Wars fans, and very expensive to buy in lego form.

I copied from this picture:

And my felt version: