With all my bitching and moaning about my sewing machines the past 2 weeks, I laughed uproariously at this video. When my husband saw it, he said that she was having a better day than I did this past Thursday!
Showing posts with label sewing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sewing. Show all posts
Sunday, April 19, 2020
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
Hope My Hands Hold Out
A few years ago I had to stop making stuff using my sewing machines because hunching over hurt my already arthritic neck. The few things I had to sew I tried make do with a needle and thread and did it by hand. Then I got those stiff, slightly deformed and swollen fingers from rheumatoid arthritis and barely did any sewing at all. Fabric glue and double sided tape became my friends for mending jobs.
But now, I feel a real need to get sewing again. The first things I'm going to make are a few masks using this video for inspiration:
I've seen dozens of mask-making videos the past few days but this one is not only the easiest one but safest because of that pocket for inserting a filter. As many have suggested in the replies, I'll be sewing in a strip of wire at the top before folding up and sewing the pockets so the mask can be shaped to block out more air. I know I have various wires in this house - my son's an engineer and used a lot of it during some of his college courses, especially while getting his MS in electrical engineering. Some also suggested using those twist ties from bread or produce bags but I think they would be a bit too flimsy and break easily, especially if these masks get washed as often as they should be.
But first, I have to find my machines.
Oh, geographically, I know exactly where they are in the living room. But you know how people joke around about their treadmills are used more as clothing racks than for exercise? Well, my sewing machine table has been the dropping point for "stuff" ever since I covered up the machines a few years ago to keep them (Yes, more than one) dust-free. Computer components, extra keyboards, magazines waiting to be gone through and recycled, and I may have even seen a bag or 2 of beans on it, for some reason. Underneath the table it's even worse, with Nintendo Wii boxes, unused fans awaiting warm weather again, is that a grocery bag filled with my son's pasta sauce I see? I know he grabbed a few extra jars when we first started stocking up and I told him to find a place to store them out of the way, but why under my sewing table?? The chair I used to use has been shoved into a corner and is now holding boxes of books, a bag full of cables, wires, and extension cords.
So it'll take me a few days to clear that corner of the living room out and find homes for all the stuff on and under it. Where will I put it all? I have no idea - that's why it all ended up there in the first place. If I chip away at it a few minutes here, a few minutes there, in the times my husband is taking a break from his work on his computer on the other side of the room, I might be able to get to see the machines by the end of next week. Over the weekend I'll have my guys help find homes for all the crap under the table. The chair may be a lost cause (Every horizontal surface in this apartment that doesn't move has a pile of books on it) so I can just wheel in my computer chair when I'm ready to sew.
Luckily, I have a lot of usable fabric from my quilt making days within reach and not all of it stuffed into storage. It'll be easy to find a few novelty prints in a woven cotton calico to make these masks. I have a whole plastic shoebox filled with various elastics, including elastic cording, so that's covered. I have to find where I put my sewing machine thread stash. I didn't see it in the space I used to keep it so it must have gotten moved, but where??
And after all of that is done, keep your collective fingers crossed that I can actually do it - the cutting out and the sewing of these masks. My fingers hurt just using scissors to open bags of frozen veggies, and on a bad pain day, especially when my knuckles are swollen, I can't even do that. My fabric scissors - expensive when I bought them over 30 years ago - are really heavy. That makes it easier to cut through tough fabrics like jeans-weight denim and such, but using them is tiring and usually painful, even before my RA diagnosis. Decades ago I bought a pair of electric scissors but they couldn't really cut all that well, and holding down the button while cutting was more tiring and painful than just using regular cutting shears, so I got rid of them, donating them to a senior center.
Oh, gosh, I'm rambling again. And now my hands hurt from typing so much.
Stay safe, everyone.
But now, I feel a real need to get sewing again. The first things I'm going to make are a few masks using this video for inspiration:
I've seen dozens of mask-making videos the past few days but this one is not only the easiest one but safest because of that pocket for inserting a filter. As many have suggested in the replies, I'll be sewing in a strip of wire at the top before folding up and sewing the pockets so the mask can be shaped to block out more air. I know I have various wires in this house - my son's an engineer and used a lot of it during some of his college courses, especially while getting his MS in electrical engineering. Some also suggested using those twist ties from bread or produce bags but I think they would be a bit too flimsy and break easily, especially if these masks get washed as often as they should be.
But first, I have to find my machines.
Oh, geographically, I know exactly where they are in the living room. But you know how people joke around about their treadmills are used more as clothing racks than for exercise? Well, my sewing machine table has been the dropping point for "stuff" ever since I covered up the machines a few years ago to keep them (Yes, more than one) dust-free. Computer components, extra keyboards, magazines waiting to be gone through and recycled, and I may have even seen a bag or 2 of beans on it, for some reason. Underneath the table it's even worse, with Nintendo Wii boxes, unused fans awaiting warm weather again, is that a grocery bag filled with my son's pasta sauce I see? I know he grabbed a few extra jars when we first started stocking up and I told him to find a place to store them out of the way, but why under my sewing table?? The chair I used to use has been shoved into a corner and is now holding boxes of books, a bag full of cables, wires, and extension cords.
So it'll take me a few days to clear that corner of the living room out and find homes for all the stuff on and under it. Where will I put it all? I have no idea - that's why it all ended up there in the first place. If I chip away at it a few minutes here, a few minutes there, in the times my husband is taking a break from his work on his computer on the other side of the room, I might be able to get to see the machines by the end of next week. Over the weekend I'll have my guys help find homes for all the crap under the table. The chair may be a lost cause (Every horizontal surface in this apartment that doesn't move has a pile of books on it) so I can just wheel in my computer chair when I'm ready to sew.
Luckily, I have a lot of usable fabric from my quilt making days within reach and not all of it stuffed into storage. It'll be easy to find a few novelty prints in a woven cotton calico to make these masks. I have a whole plastic shoebox filled with various elastics, including elastic cording, so that's covered. I have to find where I put my sewing machine thread stash. I didn't see it in the space I used to keep it so it must have gotten moved, but where??
And after all of that is done, keep your collective fingers crossed that I can actually do it - the cutting out and the sewing of these masks. My fingers hurt just using scissors to open bags of frozen veggies, and on a bad pain day, especially when my knuckles are swollen, I can't even do that. My fabric scissors - expensive when I bought them over 30 years ago - are really heavy. That makes it easier to cut through tough fabrics like jeans-weight denim and such, but using them is tiring and usually painful, even before my RA diagnosis. Decades ago I bought a pair of electric scissors but they couldn't really cut all that well, and holding down the button while cutting was more tiring and painful than just using regular cutting shears, so I got rid of them, donating them to a senior center.
Oh, gosh, I'm rambling again. And now my hands hurt from typing so much.
Stay safe, everyone.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Apron Finally Done
Remember that apron I was making, back in this post from November 20th? It's finally finished! Read all about it here.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
VegMoFo Post - What to Wear
Yeah, you don't want to hear about more boring vacation foods, like the pot of split pea soup I tossed together last night to go with the sandwiches, the veggie soup I'll toss together with whatever veggies are in the fridge today, or the same faux chicken cutlets from the Everyday Dish DVD by Bryanna Clark Grogan. You want to read about aprons.
Yes, I admit it: I wear an apron when I cook. It's a habit I got early in life from my Hungarian grandmother. She was raised on a farm, and because back then in Europe it was almost as bad as here during the time of the Little House on the Prairie books of Laura Ingles, and she and her sisters had 2 dresses each - one good one that was worn on holidays and those rare Sundays they drove miles in a horse-drawn cart to church, and an everyday dress that they wore full length aprons over, because aprons not only take less fabric to make but they're easier to wash than whole dresses, especially if the dress is hand-sewn because nobody had their own sewing machine.
Anyway, even as a little girl I loved to sew aprons, and even though my neuritis and arthritis keeps me from sewing as much as I want to, when I do sew lately it's usually been another apron. My favorite pattern, one that fits all my flab, is from Mary Mulari, and even she calls it :
I make my pockets different, though. There's always enough fabric left over to make a full-width rectangular pocket that I divide into three sections.
A yard of fabric for each side is easily found in my stash, although for specialty aprons, like the Fall-themed one I'm working on now, I buy new fabric from the only store that sells yardage in a 30 mile radius, a small Joann's store. This particular one has apples on one side, carrots on the other.
It'll look great if I ever get it done. It took about 2 months just to cut it out. Maybe later today I can talk hubby into taking a nap and I'll finally get a chance to stitch it together.
Some of the other aprons I already made up over the years have stripes, teddy bears, candy canes & peppermints, M&M candies, stars and planets, chickens
& cows, frogs & bugs, even Winnie the Pooh. Quilting calicoes come in so many different novelty prints! I wonder if I can find fabric that has tofu 
on it to make a true vegan-themed apron?
Yes, I admit it: I wear an apron when I cook. It's a habit I got early in life from my Hungarian grandmother. She was raised on a farm, and because back then in Europe it was almost as bad as here during the time of the Little House on the Prairie books of Laura Ingles, and she and her sisters had 2 dresses each - one good one that was worn on holidays and those rare Sundays they drove miles in a horse-drawn cart to church, and an everyday dress that they wore full length aprons over, because aprons not only take less fabric to make but they're easier to wash than whole dresses, especially if the dress is hand-sewn because nobody had their own sewing machine.
Anyway, even as a little girl I loved to sew aprons, and even though my neuritis and arthritis keeps me from sewing as much as I want to, when I do sew lately it's usually been another apron. My favorite pattern, one that fits all my flab, is from Mary Mulari, and even she calls it :
Mary Mulari's Favorite Reversible Apron Pattern
I make my pockets different, though. There's always enough fabric left over to make a full-width rectangular pocket that I divide into three sections.
A yard of fabric for each side is easily found in my stash, although for specialty aprons, like the Fall-themed one I'm working on now, I buy new fabric from the only store that sells yardage in a 30 mile radius, a small Joann's store. This particular one has apples on one side, carrots on the other.
It'll look great if I ever get it done. It took about 2 months just to cut it out. Maybe later today I can talk hubby into taking a nap and I'll finally get a chance to stitch it together.
Some of the other aprons I already made up over the years have stripes, teddy bears, candy canes & peppermints, M&M candies, stars and planets, chickens
& cows, frogs & bugs, even Winnie the Pooh. Quilting calicoes come in so many different novelty prints! I wonder if I can find fabric that has tofu on it to make a true vegan-themed apron?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)