18 Oct 2013

wonky stitch lines and inventive sewing techniques.

I have been lucky enough to be given a whole pile of crumb sacks.  Literally fabric sacks that contain the crumb (like bread crumb) used for adding to the filling of ravioli to wick up the moisture and hold all the other ingredients.  My parents get through tonnes of these sacks for the pasta business but they have such a lovely print on them that no one can ever bring themselves to throw them away.

So now I have a pile of them on my desk and, aside from adding a zipper to make an instant pillow case, I have been struggling to think of ways to use them.  Plus there is no way around it; I am a horrific seamstress.  Patterns are a foreign language to me and my stitching tends to look a little drunken.  Today was particularly successful - I spent a good long time (genuinely over thirty minutes) getting very stressed (inclusive of hormonal foot stamping) at the tension dial on the sewing machine before realising I simply hadn't threaded the machine right.  Standard. 

But, several hours later and multiple consoling cups of tea - I created this!  I cannot explain how huge this is for me.  A genuine, functioning pen-roll!  Despite the wonky thread lines (and my apparent inability to trim threads before photographing), it actually works!

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I sewed wadding into the pen roll to add some support but it made it a little too puffy.  Next time I think using a thicker fabric to act as support would probably work better.  If there will be a next time.  James is on nights at the moment and for the sake of him getting any sleep in the day, it might be an idea for me to abandon sewing machine plans for this week at least.

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4 comments:

  1. Add stiff interfacing instead of the wadding? You can iron it on, it's easy peasy.

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    1. Ooh - that actually sounds within my remit!

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  2. I have fabric envy. I made a crayon roll for my niece a couple years ago, you've inspired me to do some more grown up versions!

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    1. I wouldn't quite describe this as a grown-up version - it looks a little like a Blue Peter project gone awry! But thank you :)

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