Days Forty Three and Forty Four

2/13/13 Just popping in really quick to say that I'm not dead and I actually have worked on stuff the last two days but I've just been lame and not posted it. Hopefully I will get it done tomorrow! Right now I'm off to bed. Sorry.

EDIT 2/15/13 Ok, I'm finally getting around to writing this post. I'm really excited about it actually!

So. I messed up dyeing my altered pants purple, so I bleached them white. I like how they turned out, so I may keep them this way, or I may eventually try dying them again, who knows. 

Here's what the pants looked like after I finished altering them from flares to skinnies, and then what they looked like after my sad attempt at dying them.

And then... what they look like now! (I'm slowly starting to figure out how to take more flattering photos of my legs, lol). 

I used this blog post to help guide me through the bleaching. Her shorts apparently took 31 hours (?!?) to be completely bleached, which is kind of confusing to me, since my jeans took only three hours. I probably could have done it longer to get them a little more pure white, but I was satisfied with them and I didn't want the bleach to hurt the fabric more than necessary. And it's a good thing I took them out of the bleach when I did, because on day forty four I had to do some repairs.

The bleach literally ate away at the hole where the button goes through the fabric!

I had to sew that hole up before I could attach a new button, but it's pretty rough since it wasn't just a cut, where you can just sew together the two sides, but a big gaping hole. I wasn't sure the best way to go about fixing that, so I kind of just pretended it was just a cut and pulled two sides together and sewed it all up, but it created gross puckers. A better way to do it probably would have been to put a piece of fabric behind it, but I didn't think of that until later when I had to fix the next thing.

Anyway, here's the new button I attached and the inside with my mess of sewing.

The next thing was that when I put these pants on for the first time after bleaching (then washing and drying), one of the belt loops ripped right out. I put a piece of the jeans (from where I cut off the extra fabric after altering) behind the rip and sewed it all to that backing piece. I also did this to one other belt loop that hadn't ripped out yet, but I saw some tears forming so I did it as a preemptive measure.

 

 

All fixed up! I like how these jeans turned out. Hopefully they're still strong enough that I can wear them for awhile without them falling apart. Though I may be getting good at jean repairs in the near future...

Day Thirty Seven

I finished the second pair of jeans today! Hooray!

I like how the first pair turned out better, but I I think they fit me better in the first place, so there's not much I can do about that. I think I'll dye that pair dark blue and this pair purple!  Or maybe white with cool designs in black. I can't decide.

This is not my favorite photo of me (or at least my legs) for several reasons, but whatever. I'm not a model, I just alter jeans, and that's what I'm showing you, not my fab bod!

Day Thirty Five

I started sewing my second pair of jeans today. It seemed like I spent ages on them but I got barely anything done, which is always so frustrating. The first pair went way faster than these ones, which seems odd to me.

I wanted to do the inner seam right (I didn't on the first pair- I did it the easy way and now it looks a bit weird, I'll post pics eventually) so I found this tutorial on how to do it... but I didn't realize until I had already started sewing it that you have to be able to open it otherwise you'll just sew the seam to the other side of your pant leg. If that makes sense. Since I had sewn the other side first, I can't make the inside seam the right way, and I had to rip out the stitches I did before realizing.

Point is, it was frustrating and took a long time and I didn't even really accomplish much. Grr. And for that reason I do not have a photo today.

I hate how half of the sentences I write start with I. It's true that this is basically a me centered blog, but it still really annoys me. Hopefully as I keep writing I will improve and get better at avoiding that.

Day Thirty Three

I started the first stages of altering my second pair of flare jeans today.

I put them on inside out and pinned them close to my legs, as skinny jeans would fit, then used a pink hi-liter to draw along the pins. Then I took the pins out, took them off, and used a ruler to mark cleaner lines with a black sharpie (this may bleed through so if you do this be smarter than me and avoid the sharpie. If you have it, use sewing chalk or something removable). This time around I remembered not to cut away the excess yet (to give you mess up room while sewing).

Day Twenty Eight

I finished altering those jeans today- I'm wearing them right now and they feel good! Up close you can see my stitching isn't perfect, but they look ok and feel ok, so I don't care. At least I won't until the seams start ripping open because I didn't use a strong enough thread... oh well. I'll deal with that when I get there.

For now I don't have a picture because hubs dearest is out having a grand time with friends. I will post pics here tomorrow!

Day Twenty Six

I have a couple pairs of jeans that I rarely wear because 1) they are flare cut and 2) they are pale blue. Both of those factors just don't do it for me. So I got to thinking, I'm sure it's possible to turn flare jeans into skinny jeans... it can't be that hard right? So I went to digging around the internet and found a couple videos (this is one of the better ones) and today I started on one of the pairs. After I've altered them (assuming I do it well enough to wear them regularly) I plan on either dying them darker or bleaching them white. Or both, since I have two pairs of these jeans!

I have crappy webcam photos of me wearing them as a before as well as with a bunch of pins in it, but they are on my husband's computer and I want to go to bed so I'll add them tomorrow. Sorry.

For now, I just have this photo of the jeans after I cut out the extra fabric from the flares. Unfortunately I've already messed up; at least in the video she leaves the extra there while sewing so that there's room to mess up, then cuts it out after everything's sewn up. Blllaaaaarrggh that's what I get for not watching the video all the way through before diving into a project. Typical Jessica! Guess I'll just have to not mess up. Ha. Likely.

Ok, time for bed.

Day Five

Today (since it's after midnight, technically yesterday) I finished my sister's belated Christmas present... I know. I'm terrible. I definitely bit off more than I could chew this year. It probably wasn't very smart of me to decide to sew seven full sized bags and three small bags as gifts a week before Christmas, and then set about learning how to use a sewing machine in order to do so. And I couldn't just go out and buy fabric, I had to use a material that I pretty much have to make myself. That's how I roll- making everything as hard as possible, and with as little time to do it as possible. I really am stunned by my own intelligence sometimes.

Rather than using plastic grocery bags as I did with the bag for my mom (day two), this time I just used plain trash bags: black bags for the strap and the black panels, and white bags that I designed with Sharpies before ironing to fuse the layers of plastic together (if you try this, make sure to turn the bag inside out if there is any ink, or it will be ruined).  This bag goes over the shoulder and has a cute little flap. I half used a free pattern I found online and half winged it, and I think it turned out quite satisfactory! Probably the most time consuming part of the whole thing was drawing/coloring in (inking? saying "coloring in" feels so... elementary school) the different designs, which I did before Christmas, I just needed to sew everything together.

If anyone wants to try my method for making trash bag fabric, I can post a more detailed step-by-step process with photos. On day two I posted the link to the video I learned this from, but after lots of trial and error I've figured out a few tricks they don't mention that help it go more smoothly. I can also post a link to the pattern I based this bag on (which came from a site with a huge list of links to free purse patterns).

And again, this was a gift so I can't sell it, but I could do a commission. If someone commissioned me to make a bag for them out of this material, I could do the designs in a color scheme of their choice! It's rather time consuming though, so it would be a bit pricey.

Day Two

Today's piece is one that I've worked on in bursts over the last week, and it's a belated Christmas gift for my mother (I made these things for my family and couldn't get them all done in time). Since this is a gift I obviously will not put it on etsy, but I can do commissions. I've made one using mostly Target bags that was very cool, and one with brown plastic bags that was a different look.

It is a reusable grocery bag. Glamorous I know!
The cool part is that it's made from used plastic grocery bags, melted together into thicker pieces and sewn together. To add some color and interest I scribbled some Sharpie on there before ironing them- my mom likes blue best.

I learned how to do this from this great video.
I can answer any specific questions in the comments!