Satisfying sewing

I've been doing lots of the boring type of sewing lately: mending jeans (I should probably accept that my favourite pair might need to be laid to rest soon. That's a traumatic moment for me, especially as I have not been having much luck in finding a suitable replacement. Jeans that are not tight at the knees are apparently not in style right now and all I've found so far is a pair of wide leg jeans that I'm convinced that I am too short for. The search continues...); raising hems (like I said, I'm short) and alterations (I make all of a couple of things for myself and suddenly I'm convinced that I can take things apart at the seams to improve the fit. This might well end in tears, especially as I'm now wondering if I could make those flares a little less wide...). Anyway, it was rather nice to return to the more satisfying type of sewing that is making something from scratch:I picked the fabric out for this one as soon as I cobbled together my first shirt. This one is a little narrower and I also added back darts to give it a little more shape.I skipped the buttons this time, but might add some decorative frog closures, if I can find some smaller ones than the ones in my local fabric store.

The sleeves are 3/4 length, but this was the only photo of them unrolled that I could find where I wasn't pulling a daft face. My son has a knack for taking ages to take a picture, then taking it the minute that I start to say something. His giggling at the results is leading me to believe that that might not be wholly unintentional...Translation of the Day:

Here's one that came up in conversation with my husband the other day:

UK English: hen night = bachelorette party in US English

UK English: stag night = bachelor party in US English

Summer

Warning: long pauses between blogging may be about to occur

2 broken needles and a bent needle...

2 projects, 2 broken needles and a bent needle - that has to be a new record, even for me. I should probably start at the beginning, though: I am not dead. I'm sorry for disappearing on you. I didn't get whisked off to some exotic clime, with no internet access. My only excuse is that months and months of poor sleep just suddenly caught up with me. Then my daughter became ill and added further to the sleep deprivation. Ugh.Still, the end of the school year was fast approaching so it was time to drag out the sewing machine again. Bags, again. Well, I find totes useful and I thought it safest to keep to something that my sleep deprived brain knew. That didn't stop the sewing machine needle massacre from occuring, mind.

I wouldn't have minded if I was breaking needles on the sewing through 10 layers of fabric parts, but they were snapping on the easy bits - and I was using heavy duty needles, too. My sewing machine just kept having funny spells. At one point even the spikey metal thing that holds the bobbin case started sliding out forward. I couldn't see how it was supposed to be kept in place, so I just pushed it back and then everything went ok. It's probably time that I took the machine in for a service. It's been having too many funny spells lately. I'm just scared after hearing horror stories of machines coming back from being serviced and never working the same again...

Anyway, back to the bags. For my daughter's Kindergarten teacher, the red / pink apples above, reversible to these orange flowers: I liked this orange flower print a lot.Then, for my son's Second Grade teacher, yet more apples (they must get so sick of apples, but I don't seem to be able to stop myself...)
Reversible to this:
Hopefully they'll like them, along with the other little bits and pieces we got them. My kids drew cards / little books / letters to add their thanks, but I don't think that it will be until they are adults that they really realise how lucky they were to have such great teachers.

Well, I'm off to the store to make the most of my last day of being able to run errands without the kids in tow. The summer holidays have crept up way too fast. Still, I'm trying to get prepared - I'm already writing lists of ideas. Now, if I could just persuade my kids to sleep in for once...