How to mend jeans tutorial

My jeans mending skillz have come a long way since I fixed the knee in this pair of jeans...which ended up ripping again soon after I fixed them.

Hold up-- I just realized the jeans I used in this week's video is that pair of jeans. Totally unplanned.

You see, when the knee in those jeans gave out yet after fixing it twice, I decided to just cut the jeans into shorts. But then my new shorts decided to get a hole in the butt (er, butt hole?) anway. Does the Gap outlet sell poor quality jeans, or what?

But this time around, I was ready. Since that knee ripped two years ago, I've fixed numerous holes and have devised what I think is the best way for fixing jeans. If you'd like to know the method, you can watch my How to Repair Jeans video.

Otherwise, I'll just tell you that I fixed FIVE pairs of jeans last week, putting a serious dent in mending pile, and getting some serious jeanage back into rotation. They weren't all small holes, either! There was a lot of chub-rub damage to be fixed, which of course tends to cover a sizeable area of denim real estate.

The bad news is I still have four of my husband's jeans to repair. I guess I'll be fixing those at some point, but probs not anytime soon! Mending is on hold while I tend to some holiday projects!

Kermit the Frog quilt

I made a quilt for my first son's 1st birthday, so I couldn't not make my second son one too...even though neither of them will remember said first birthdays!

The difference is that this quilt was made almost entirely from stash materials, I only had to buy a little bit of  navy and green leaf-print fleece, maybe a yard and a half or so, to cover the entire back.

Everything else I already had; Kermit quilting cotton from the thrift store, a jelly roll by a brand called Stripz purchased on clearance from WalMart, and Kermit fleece I only bought because because my dream Muppet fleece was out of stock.

This Muppet quilt ended up long and narrow, just like my string-bean shaped baby-- kind of in-between toddler and twin sized.

I still hate how much static electricity fleece generates, but I'm starting to warm to it because I find it so darn easy to work with.

The top is just a random, er, "design" I came up with (I just sewed strips and slashed here and there until it resembled a rectangle). There is no batting, but I decided this will be my last quilt that I do that.

For the quilting I did double random lines, my first time trying random line quilting. Also my first time using spray basting and I am a total convert! In fact, I'm thinking of going back and re-doing my two other most recent quilts to eliminate puckering...

 

DIY Catwoman Mask

Happy late Halloween!

I love sharing my random Halloween creations with you, even though it's usually after Halloween.

This year for the first time ever, my kids ended up with totally storebought costumes, which I had mixed feelings about. I prefer DIYing at least part of their costumes (cheaper, more sentimental, can use it more than once, no one else will have it, etc), but at least Halloween costumes today are cooler than the plastic tunic-and-mask combos from when I was a kid.

My three-year-old orchestrated everyone's costumes this year. He chose Spider-man for himself, Incredible Hulk for his baby bro, Catwoman for me, and Ironman for my husband. (Shhh, I won't tell him Catwoman is the wrong "franchise" if you won't. Yes, are people in my FB feed who care about this kind of thing.)

It was the first time in years that I got to dress up, and even though I didn't get to make my kid's costumes, I did do somewhat of a DIY Catwoman costume for myself.

Catwoman is a very easy Halloween costume, and there is a lot of inspiration to choose from-- 60s TV show Catwoman, 90s Tim Burton Catwoman, comic book Catwoman, Halle Berry or Anne Hathaway Catwomen. I was leaning toward the 60s one but really, I just threw a bunch of stuff together.

I'd planned on making black leggings but ended up wearing black skinny jeans, black boots, a black long-sleeved tee, and a storebought cat-eye shaped mask that I found at Spirit. The DIY Catwoman Ears were the only thing I ended up making...

• I used black felt from Jo-Ann and bought enough I could experiment with it.
• This is my inspiration and this is the tutorial I vaguely followed for the hat part, minus all the steaming and felting.
• I cut three pieces for the hat part; a long strip and two vaguely half-circle shaped pieces, which I cut freehand.
• Stitch together using this tutorial.
• To get that widow's peak look, I just put my hat on and drew the outline I wanted, or the shape of the hat I wanted, with fabric pencil.
• I trimmed along the outline (while the hat was folded in half so that it ended up symmetrical).
• Since I had just cut away some of the stitching, I sewed a seam around the hat, about 1/8" of an inch from the edge, to keep it from coming apart.
• For the ears, which did end up looking more Batman than Catwoman, I cut out four triangles, sewed them right-sides together down the top two sides, and turned them.
• I stitched the ears to the hat along the third side of the triangle that previously had no stitching, but I did have to do a small bar tack at the base of each ear on the opposite side of the sewing to get them to stand up.

There you have it! A vaguely DIY Catwoman hat which actually looks more Batgirl because of the ears, but I think it gets the point across! Now we're in full-on holiday mode around here.