One of many covers

I've made a number of different covers lately. The very last one is this book cover made for a ten year old friend of my kids. Of course it came with a book as well! Not just any book, but my daughters favorite a few years back, The Brothers Lionheart by swedish author Astrid Lindgren.

The idea is that the birthday girl can use the cover for a tablet or anything else she wants to use it for later. I also told her I can add a handle or a shoulder strap if she wants to use it as a handbag, but that idea was declined instantly and she claimed she loved it the way it was.

My mothers jeans...

I helped my mother to shorten her jeans and just had to make something out of the leftovers and turned them into a little bowl!

Jag hjälpe mamma att korta sina jeans och kunde inte låta bli att göra en skål av bensluten!

Favoritjeansen som blev en kjol

Today's blog post in Husmorsskolans symöte is in Swedish with a summary in English at the end.

Förutom att jeansen var trasiga så är de ju för varma 

denna årstiden och jeanskjolen kommer jag 

att bo i närmsta tiden, så jag är mycket nöjd!

Panik! I lördags upptäckte jag stora hål i grenen på mina favoritjeans. Samtidigt var jag i stort behov av en kjol som går ner en bit och täcker mina bleka ben så igår omvandlade jag dem till en jeanskjol. 

Kruxet var att få rynkningen i volangerna jämn och fin. Först provade jag med rynkfoten, men det gick inte alls i det tjocka tyget, och inte heller fungerade det att sy med elastisk undertråd i jeanstyget. Till sist sydde jag fast ett 5mm brett resårband i kanten (jag mätte resårbandet efter den del av kjolen som tyget skulle sättas fast i och drog ut det till volangens längd när jag sydde fast det i volangen med trestegszickzack) och då gick det som en dans.

Ett par jeans räckte inte riktigt till hela kjolen. Nedersta våden är gjord av baksidan på benen, men till den mittersta fick jag förutom framsidan av benen ta till lite bitar från andra jeans som jag hade liggande. 

Fler bidrag till dagens symöte finns på Husmorsskolan.

At first I panicked when I discovered big holes in the crotch of my favorites jeans on Saturday, but I was in great need of a skirt covering up the major part of my pale legs so yesterday I transformed the jeans into a skirt. The jeans were anyway getting to warm for this time of year and I'm sure I'll use the skirt a lot so even if they were my favorite pair I'm very happy with this refashion!

Not as I expected...

It was patching my favorite jeans as a teen in the 80-ies that got me hooked on sewing. 25 years later I realise that I had forgotten how hard it is to sew in jeans! The sleeve for my Sony Reader didn't turn out at all as I imagied from the start and I think I redid every stich 2-3 times and some even more times than that!

One of the first things I did was to add interfacing, but it didn't only not stick properly (too old?), it also made the whole piece impossible to pass trough my sewing mashine so it had to be ripped off again. At one point I had a pocket from a pair of kid's jeans sewn unto the back, but it was too big and didn't fullfill any function as I had imagined that it would so it was also taken back of again (and so on...) 

At least my e-book reader seems happy ad comfy in there so I have decided to leave it as it is!

I had to give up a few details I wanted, but at the end I'm glad I managed to get a pocket and a string to hold a pen in. 

The lining ended up different to the ones I took a picture of on Tuesday. I find the bird fabrics from IKEA fit very well in there. That's something more I'm happy with about this little project. Now that I started to get a go on sewing in jeans (and I have quite a lot of it) I think my next jeans project will be a pair of slippers.

Skydd till e-boksläsaren

Today's blog posts in Husmorsskolans symöte is in Swedish with a summary in English at the end.

Som utlandssvensk är min Sony Reader helt oumbärlig. Den har revolutionerat min läsning eftersom jag slipper vänta på att de böcker jag vill läsa först ska komma ut i pocket och sedan på att jag ska resa till Sverige, köpa dem och därefter bäras hem i en tung resväska. 

Min Sony behöver ett fodral i rätt storlek och jag funderar på hur jag ska göra. Provar mig fram på lite olika vis. Foder, knappar, mellanlägg, format (kuvert eller bok)... Många är frågorna och det enda som just nu är helt säkert är att den görs av avlagda jeans. 

I am in the process of making some kind of cover for my Sony Reader, but there are so may decisions to make before I can finish the work :)

Fler bidrag till dagens symöte finns på Husmorsskolan.

Girl's jeans skirt

I really wish I had taken a picture before remaking my daughter's skirt. The old skirt had a perfect fitting waistband, but apart from that everything about the skirt was wrong; it had no pockets, it was to long and much, much to wide which made it very heavy.

The old skirt was made with one enormous front piece and one enormous backpiece (each about 1/3 of a circle), so I took it apart and just kept the waistband including the belt holders intact. I used a pattern from Ottobre 4/2012 as a guidance for the new skirt, but I had to make a lot of changes to the pattern to get it the way I wanted. In the process I probably cut off half the fabric used originally.

The original skirt had some nice embroideries which I managed to keep. To keep the project as simple as possible I didn't plan to take the zip out, but then I realised it had to be done as the sides of the skirt was a completely different cut to the new pattern. I also put in pockets and made the back of the skirt out of three pieces instead of one for a better fit.

Jeans bag

Kids have a tendency to outgrow their clothes a little bit too quick and I turned my daughter's old jeans shorts in to a bag she can use this summer. As I didn't have any long bits left over from the legs of the jeans I made stripes of the shorts legs and patched them together. I also folded in the bottom corners to give the bag a bit more shape and firmness at the bottom. I used a pretty neutral lining made from a tablecloth bought second hand some years ago. If I were to make one for myself I think I would have chosen a more contrasting lining for a nice effect. 

She is pretty happy with the result. Now it remains to be seen if she'll actually use it as well... If she doesn't I might consider using it myself!