wherein Liz sews stuff (and gets rid of some junk in the process)

[edenfalling]

Tonight I looked through my old bags of 'repair this maybe?' clothing and threw most of the items out. It is not really cost-effective to repair underwear (except if the tears are right along the seams), nor is there much point in repairing bras that don't fit anymore. I couldn't figure out why one pair of pants was in the repair queue, but I will be donating them to charity anyhow.

I will also be donating the brown shirt with the useless sleeves that I suspect I got from my Aunt Cara after one of her bargain-hunting sprees -- instead of proper cuffs, it has these five-inch slits on each arm down at the wrist end. I do not like the fit or the fabric well enough to put in the effort of sewing those closed, but it is a nice shirt and somebody else might like it fine. (Designer clothes are weird, is all I'm saying.)

Once I'd dealt with all that, I made some progress on the few items I'm keeping. I reattached the straps of my shoulder/tote bag to the bag itself, I closed a tear in my cheap nylon laundry bag (it was along the seam, so it was worth fixing; when it inevitably gets holes elsewhere, I will toss it), I put some tucks in the waistband of a black skirt so I can still wear it even though the elastic has gone stretched and mostly useless, and I hemmed one leg of a new pair of black pants.

That is quite enough for one day!

I occasionally think of investing in a small sewing machine just so hemming wouldn't be such a production, but I have never been able to justify the expense to myself when I so rarely need to sew anything and I can hand-stitch perfectly well when necessary. This does not stop hand-stitching from being a massive pain in the neck, particularly when I'm using back-stitch rather than running stitch. *sigh*

Comments

[eos_joy]

Firstly: yay productivity! ^^

Secondly: I am so jealous of your skill! I cannot sew at all. I was just never taught. I know quite a few things, but this sewing/weaving/stitching/crocheting/embroidering skill set is beyond me. *sigh*

[edenfalling]

My mom taught me running stitch when I was around eight years old. I think I was curious about her sewing machine, which for obvious reasons she didn't want me to touch, so she distracted me with hand-sewing instead. She also bought me a cross-stitch kit at one point, but after I finished the pre-packaged design (a unicorn, which was probably why I wanted the thing in the first place) I never did anything more with that skill.

I didn't learn other stitches until I was twelve or thirteen, and that was in school as part of a Home Ec class. (My middle school had a thing called 'cycle' where they rotated people through six brief classes in a single time slot over the course of a year. So we got six weeks of music, six weeks of reading (speed/comprehension), six weeks of home economics, six weeks of shop, and two other things I'm not remembering at the moment. Possibly computers and art?) Anyway, Home Ec included some basic sewing, some basic cooking, and IIRC some general life skills such as 'how a checkbook works' and so on. The first year we learned basic hand stitches and how to use a sewing machine, after which we all made our own pair of gym shorts. The second year we made plush animal toys, which was a lot more fun than gym shorts.

I can't do anything complicated, like buttonholes, zippers, or embroidery, but anyone can learn running stitch, back stitch, and whip stitch, which is all you should need for basic repairs. The internet has a lot of helpful tutorials if you ever want to learn!

[eos_joy]

You and your mother are brilliant. Those skills are important, kept you occupied, and yay unicorns! ^^

That school is brilliant. Honestly, since I was in elementary school I always said that we needed Home Ec and Shop and I never understood why my school (and all the districts surrounding) did not have them. It made no sense! No one but me knew how to balance a checkbook by my eighth grade year; I know this, because my Computer Teacher made us follow the weather for a month, the stock market for a month, and then made us "balance a budget" for a month, and no one knew how many bills would need to be paid and how to keep them balanced. (I knew because I was a precocious, worrisome child who made my mother show me how a check and checkbook worked when I was...4. Granted, it was while I was being diagnosed with Diabetes, so she probably did it to distract me from needles and the like, but, yeah.)

Anywho, yes: everyone should have that cycle because it's brilliant and would be even better if it included cars and car maintenance and perhaps Good Manners Class. >.>

It would be so, so good. *__*

[marmota_b]

Personally, as a Sewasaurus Rex of a weird Beginner-Intermediate-Advanced level (I appear to have or be able to find all the necessary knowledge and skill to sew a corset, but I still haven't done a single proper, neat buttonhole on my machine): I'm of the opinion that there's no point in investing in a machine if it isn't strong enough to sew denim/other pants and jackets materials. Which a small cheap machine you presumably can justify for occasional repairs would not be. But I've got to admit, hand-hemming my full pleated skirts would really be a pain in the neck.

[edenfalling]

Oh god, I cannot even imagine hemming a whole skirt by hand. I just hem pretty much every pair of pants I buy, because I am short and they are invariably too long. It is much simpler to buy 'regular' length pants and hem them than it is to find 'petite' style pants... especially when 'petites' are often a little too short. *sigh*

[marmota_b]

Yeah, I can imagine. Pants seem to be a universal problem. I'm fairly regular-sized if short-ish, but with long torso and short legs, and a pretty big difference between waist and hips. Very soon, it became clear that no matter what kind of pants I buy, they're going to fit badly *somewhere*. One of the main reasons why I've taken up sewing from scratch!

I've done hand-hemming on skirts, but not the fully pleated ones!

[wistfulmemory.livejournal.com]

I never thought I'd ever own a sewing machine, but now that I'm a costumer, it makes life so much easier (unless it decides to throw a hissy fit while I'm using it).

[edenfalling]

Yeah, if my life ever changes to a point where I need to sew more than, say, three or four times/items per year, I would prefer to invest in a sewing machine because I have limited patience for hand stitching. But so far those conditions have not applied.