Sewing Up Some Privacy II

Here are the curtains I sewed for our living room window. Their construction is a big improvement over the bathroom curtain I made first. The fabric weight and color is perfect: it lets in plenty of light, but also provides enough privacy. Pretty good for the skimpy Ikea fabric section. Privacy was definitely a major consideration here because this window sits in front of the sidewalk right at eye level. 

The next step for this curtain is custom screenprinting by Chris. I'll take more photos when it happens, but at the moment the project is still in the design phase. 

Sewing Projects: Practical and More Practical

Last Sunday when Chris left for work he said he needed a bag. When he came home I had this just about finished. I made it up as I went along, and it turned out only a little crooked. Sewing this way is like skipping right to the fun part. I used some corduroy fabric that I already had, and decided to turn it inside out so the outside of the bag would be smooth. 

Here is Chris on his way to the Spuyten Duyvil beer store, bag ready to be filled with bottles. The whole bag used recycled materials: the corduroy is cast-off pant legs from Chris making a pair of shorts, and the strap is one of Chris's old belts. To disguise the seam of the pant legs, I ran a zig zag stitch over it in gray. The color combo ended up coordinating with pretty much his whole wardrobe. 

I've hemmed a few pairs of pants, which I am inordinately proud of. I got the idea that hemming pants was the hardest sewing project ever when Jeanne and Joanne's Sewing Room in Wilmington ruined two pairs of my pants by hemming the legs at different lengths. Seriously J and J, how do you do that? So obsessively comparing one pant leg to another throughout the process, I've now hemmed jeans and corduroys. I also hemmed a pair of dress pants using a blind stitch hem on my machine. This tutorial on machine blind stitch hem was very helpful. 

 

Happy Valentine's Day!

I've been using my new sewing machine quite a bit since my parents gave it to me for Christmas. I've been wanting to use it to make cards, but I couldn't get motivated until I saw this simple Valentine's Day card idea. I altered this idea a little, by using card stock I had on hand instead of buying something fancy, and I made the card a single layer, more like the cards you passed out in grade school. 

I've been wondering how in the world anyone sews a curved line with their machine, and I knew that working on this project would help me figure it out. The answer: very patiently. 

I gathered some scrap fabric, cut out some hearts, and started out by practicing the zig-zag stitches. 

It was hard, and I knew that if I waited until I could do it perfectly, I wouldn't send the cards out in time. So I practiced until I could basically trace the heart, and then I went into production mode.

Step 1: cut out hearts using scrap fabric. The link above includes a template, but I just made my own by sketching on card stock. 

Step 2:  sew the border stitches using a straight, short stitch. Make a few extras to take the pressure off for Step 3. 

Step 3: experiment with your zig-zag stitch setting and stitch length until you find your favorite one to use for outlining the heart. Secure the fabric heart to the paper, with a bit of glue or double-sided tape. Then it's the fun part--zig zag stitch on a curve!

Step 4: I wanted to create the ragged edge like the cards on the purlbee. I followed a link on their site to learn how to create that edge using my sewing machine. Remove all thread from the machine and then "sew" close to the edge using short stitches so the needle creates a perforated edge. Fold several times, then tear away the excess paper from the edge. 

Making the perforated edge was too much fun, and it made the cards even more like grade-school valentines: remember how they came in sheets and each card was folded and torn away? 

Sewing Up Some Privacy

My parents gave me a sewing machine for Christmas, and I'm using it to do a little decorating around our apartment. This was my first project: a curtain for the bathroom window. Next Chris will screenprint it with a design. 

The curtain is totally crooked on the right side. I was winging it a little when I measured and hemmed. 

I'm currently one-half of the way done with two-piece curtains for our living room window. Will post pics.