Results of Make and Mend Month

Last week Shelley at New Vintage Lady posted that due to some supplies for her M&M finally still in the mail and a few requests from folks that she was going to extend Make and Mend July.

While I totally understand her decision it makes me kind of sad because I actually finished it! I don't usually finish challenges like this. I'm thinking that being off for about 2 1/2 weeks of that helped ;-)

So I'm going to post my final results anyway. The theme to M&M was to use what you had, specifically

*Use fabric you already have for any new project.

*Alter a current pattern for a new garment.

*Repair/Mend 3 things from your ‘fix’ pile.

*Repurpose at least one piece of fabric.

*Make something for someone else.

Here's how I did; 

Use a fabric you already have for any new project; C's apron The patterned material in C's Apron is probably 10 years old or so and was bought for either her or her sister when they were little. Probably to make a cute dress out of. 

I think this will get more use! 

 Of course the advantage to this project is that is also fufiled Make something for someone else

I just hope that's allowed! >grin<

Next up... Repurpose at least one piece of fabric 

These cute place mats started out as a Marshall's bag that then get ripped. Rather than throw the bag out....new place mats! I have plans to make some more from this source; the fabric is great and how do you complain about 2 place mats for 1$?!?!?

Repair/Mend 3 things from your ‘fix’ pile. I don't  have many pictures of this one but I did complete all three. 

The first was a tank top for C - that got the elastic lace repaired so it no longer has a purple safety pin holding it all together. 

2nd was a tank top of mine, bought 2 or 3 years ago. It had that bulge out at the arm pit that's supposed to be chest room on a plus sized figure. Yeah, that never worked, it just looked like this big gaping mess under my arm that delighted in showing my bra to the world. 

Third was fixing up the new dress for C that we had bought in May. It was a great dress with some lovely styling but WAY too long for a teenager. So, 3 inches off and a hem later....

Alter a current pattern for a new garment. 
This was my last thing and I still haven't finished the garment but I'm getting there. It is coming along nicely and my alterations were just the thing. 

First I added an inch to the front side seam (since my front is bigger than my back - to get things to fit without the back being huge usually means the side seams skew to my front) tapering down from the arm hole so hopefully the sleeve wouldn't need to be adjusted. Then I added some to the front as a FBA. 
I have never actually made a FBA even though my B has been F for quite a while. LOL 


I have made another modification since then and still have to shorten it for a t-shirt but all and I I'm really happy with these changes and I have to thank Shelley for pushing me to them. 
Oh! The pattern I'm using is Simplicity 3697
I'm not sure when I bought it but it's been in my stash a while! Another thing to thank her for. 


So that's the end of my M&M for July. Since M&M has been extended to August I'm going to continue working on things (especially the mend part!) but soon it will be time to start working on Hallowe'en costumes. Yay! My favorite sewing time of the year. 


I promise to finish my 3697 t-shirt though first....with pictures, of course!


Ta!

Once upon a time

There was a pretty Marshall's bag that came home with me from Seattle.
I didn't really need another bag but I kind of collect them and this one had such a pretty design on the front and back; black and white flowers. The bag also had lovely pale green sides, almost the colour of my bedroom walls. How could I resist such a pretty bag.

Then one day the bag went to school with C to carry wet swim things in (the reusable bags are *great* for that, especially ones with plastic type coatings) and got shoved into her tiny locker.
There the poor bag got ripped :-(

When the bag came home I discovered the damage and thought "well darn, there goes a pretty bag".
For a moment I thought about repairing the damage but frankly the material is a little flimsy and I didn't then the repair would hold well. But....I didn't really want to throw it out, the pattern was too pretty. So it sat.

Until the past weekend when we went on a bit of a cleaning splurge (not my favorite thing to do. Not even in the top 100!) and I found it again. On the way to the garbage with it I noticed that S had not only cleaned off the dining room table, she had set it too, with my place mats from Korea. (Okay, I admit it, I was cleaning because we were going to have guests) The table looked lovely but there were only 3 place mats (the 4th is already in use on my silverware chest) and we needed 5.

As I stood there looking at the table and holding the poor Marshall's bag I got an idea!

Today 2 beautiful  place mats were born and a large percentage of a ruined Marshall's bag will not become garbage! YAY!!!

I'm even thinking of making some matching coasters from the scraps.

To end today; a picture of Zoe sleeping in the loft bed. I spotted her because she was snoring!

Ta!