Sewing in 2010

Last year when I was setting my goals I decided I wanted to finish more old sewing projects than I started new ones. I have so many UFOs (un-finished objects) from when I worked at Hancock that I don’t need to spend money to get my sewing/creative fix. I just need to get better at finishing things I started. That’s not to say things don’t come up in the sewing world, because they do, and I was going to allow for that, but I needed to start crossing things off my list instead of just adding them to my list.

And I did it!

Here’s how the projects worked out:

2010 Old Projects

1. :check: Swim Suit – For our honeymoon I made myself a swim suit. I bought the fabric in 2009 so it counts as an old project. I’m still not the greatest at sewing stretchy materials. I haven’t found the right combination of thread and needle yet. So if you look at the inside of it, it doesn’t look that great, but when I’m wearing it you can’t see the seams so it’s just fine. No pictures of this project. Sorry.
2. :check: Messenger bag – I needed/wanted a new bag that would fit my netbook better. I’m doing as much as I can with school paperless now and a smaller bag works better. Plus my mom got me ten yards of black corduroy several years ago (I’ve already made a jacket and skirt out of it, and I’ll be making at least one more bag with it eventually too). I shrunk down a larger pattern (McCalls 5824) and added a few more pockets. I really like it.
   
3. :check: Pumpkin fleece blanket – I’ve had the brown hemmed for this for forever. So one evening I pulled it out and sat down and finally cut out the pumpkin, leaves, and vines. I sewed it together the next afternoon. It looks great over our couch in the fall.
   
4. :check: Tree fleece blanket – This one is double layered. Green on one side white on the other, making it extra warm. For the tree I sewed the shape and then very carefully cut the pieces out of the white fabric and then stitched them to the other side. So it’s a green tree on white background on one side and a white tree on a green background on the other. I bought the fleece for both the pumpkin and tree blankets four to five years ago.
   
5. :check: Names on stockings – I did this the morning we flew to Indiana for Christmas. The trick was figuring out how to transfer the writing to the fabric so I didn’t have to free hand it. I think they look great. I added the gold and silver ricrack around the cuff this year too. It serves a functional purpose.
   
6. :check: Post cards – I made a set for birthdays. Most of them ended up with a plaid background. I had a lot of fun doing the backgrounds. It’s just different widths and lengths of zig-zag stitches and other decorative stitches to make the patterns.
   

2010 New Projects

1. Halloween costumes – We ended up being out of town for our ward’s Halloween party last year and so didn’t really need costumes. But I have everything for them now and I’ll get them made for this year. This is the only project I started in 2010 and didn’t finish.
2. :check: Back door curtains – To keep things from fading so fast in our back room. The magnetic curtain rods made this project super easy. As did the fact that the window areas are roughly half the size of the width of the fabric. So all I did was put a pocket at the top, left the sides as the selvage edges, and then at the bottom I sewed a tiny decorative stitch and then frayed the bottom quarter inch of the fabric. Ta-da! Not the fanciest of curtains, but perfect for what we needed.
   
3. :check: Luggage tags – Because Brett had basically already figured out everything he was getting for Christmas and ruined it in my mind, I needed to do something to surprise him. And since his work was thinking about sending him on a business trip this year, I decided personalized luggage tags (which I’d wanted to make for a while anyway) would be fun. I used old jeans for the denim and then bought bias tape (skinny for around the plastic and thick for the loop) and the plastic. They were super easy to do and I had a lot of fun personalizing them too. I basically used this pattern, but I edged my plastic with the bias tape before sewing the three sides down. This one I put his initials on the back. The other one I did a turtle, but that one is already on his suitcase.
   
4. :check: Book Bag – I made a draw string back-pack for my nephew for Christmas so he can put books and things in. I don’t have a picture of that project either.

I’m trying the same thing this year. So far I’ve finished my red jacket. I’ve thought of one or two new projects I need to make this year (birthdays, Christmas, etc.), so that’s more incentive to finish even more old projects.