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The long put off mending pile

I suspect many of us have a mending pile which seems to just grow. Let’s face it’s far more fun to be learning/sewing some new creation. However my desire to tidy tackle the sewing room meant it could not be put off any longer.

1. A skirt I made for my daughter.

Remodelled skirt

The elastic from the original enormous skirt remodelled had lost its elasticity. As I had used the original waistband I was not able to remove the elastic and feed in a replacement. The quickest option was to sew on top a new piece. I measured my daughters waist and cut elastic to the correct waist measurement. I stretched this out as I sewed.

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2. Daughters dress.

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Remember this dress? She wore it for the first time last weekend, and she had grown somewhat! Having had a recent conversation re suitable clothing for a girl I felt it was a little short. I chopped it below the arm holes, turned over the top twice, zigzagged down and finally threaded elastic through. One new skirt:)
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3.Trousers.

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A much loved pair expensive pair of jeans, turned from black to grey and a zip which just won’t stay shut (the black cardigan is to demonstrate just how grey the trousers really are). Firstly, following a twitter chat (makeandmendhour, 8-9pm Thursday evenings) I was encouraged to invest in a dye – tada BLACK jeans.

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Now on to the zip, replacing the zip is beyond my sewing skills but I came across this nifty tricky – place a ring in the zip, and loop it over the button (prior to feeding the button through the button hole).


trouser zip repair

The zip can no longer undo on it’s own:)

4. Trousers – take two

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These are charity shop purchase of Marks & Spencer’s navy trousers. Made with stretchy cotton they are perfect for being transformed into a skinny fit. I used the above trousers as a template. Turning both inside out, and ensuring the fly and waistband were lined up exactly I used tailors chalk to mark down the outside of each leg. Pinned cut, and then sewn I am delighted with the finished result.

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Finally the co-ordinating blouse – lets just say I never finished the mending adjusting pile!! I found the top at a jumble sale, and for 20p it is the perfect top to have a go at adjusting to a smaller size. I bit more thought I think prior to scissors, any tips, as always very welcome:)

I hope I won’t leave my mending pile to grow so big next time, they were so quick and easy to alter or repair.

I hope you have had a productive week:) As usual I am off to check out fellow Handmade Harbour creative:)

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PS What do you think of larger pictures? Worth the extra loading time?


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Sonya Cisco

Thursday 29th of May 2014

Love the butterfly fabric of the dress/skirt. And you have reminded me to pop black dye on my shopping list, our jeans are looking decidely blue-ish these days!

Kate Davis

Wednesday 28th of May 2014

Your mending pile is very different to mine. I see yours as more creation whereas mine is mainly fixing holes! I bought a book recently called Mend it Better to give me some inspiration. So far I've 'darned' a whole in a cardigan sleeve and I'm going to sew buttons on to cover the stitching as it isn't very good darning. I've also bought some lace to go over a hole in a pashmina.

I like the sound of the Twitter chat. I wonder if I'll remember to attend in future.

Amylouise5

Wednesday 28th of May 2014

ooh - Loving the idea of buttons over darning:)

Laura @ Kneadwhine

Wednesday 28th of May 2014

Wow - I wish I made a bit more of those clothes that are no longer quite right. I really love the pattern on the dress that has become a skirt.

That jeans trick is a great one too!

Amylouise5

Wednesday 28th of May 2014

The skirt has a great fun pattern:)

Emma T

Wednesday 28th of May 2014

Love the dress - but handy that you can convert to skirt as well for longer wear.

I'm liking the idea of changing trousers to skinny ones. They look really good.

Photos are always slow for me - it's my connection, but only one took a while. What others have said, resize first, and compress so they're around 200kb in size if possible. Bigger photos are definitely better, I really dislike small photos - the eye prefers if all photos are the same width, so either choose a width, or go for the same width as your content. Yours is quite wide so you might not want quite that wide. 600 is probably the minimum you want, but stick with the same on both portrait and landscape

Anne

Wednesday 28th of May 2014

I'd love to be able to 'mend' no, transform, things like you. But I'm happy to report that I have used the ring through the zip trick...ah I'm not completely useless ;) #LAB

Amylouise5

Wednesday 28th of May 2014

I LOVE the ring through zip tip:)

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