The Importance of Protection

I helped run a tie-dye activity at my other daughter's Galileo camp today. One of the kids managed to get me with the dye today (not on purpose).

Here is a vivid demonstration on the importance of wearing eye protection (such as goggles, glasses, sunglasses, etc.) while doing tie-dye, even if you are not the one doing the dyeing (but especially if you are).


Here's the picture of where my face got hit by the dye. Good thing I was wearing my sunglasses! I wiped several drops of dye off of the sunglasses.


It's important to provide eye protection for the kids, even though it's a pain... the pain in the eyes is worse! And when you are working by yourself, you should still wear protection: squirts happen!

Happy--and safe--dyeing!

Fabulous Fanny Pack

My daughter and I wanted to make a birthday present for a friend who likes carrying around a book to read, but has lately had trouble with her hands. My daughter suggested a fanny pack might be nice...

My daughter practically had to duck as scraps and salvaged bits of whatnot came flying out of my craft room! That pink Disney Princess backpack that had given a zipper to my yoga bag still had another zipper, buckles, and shoulder straps to give. Another bag donated a black plastic buckle. And of course there was another pair of jeans to recycle!

The Process

We cut off the top part of the jeans and stitched down the zipper fly so it couldn't open.


Probably the hardest part was installing the zipper from the Princess backpack, since the jeans top was still a tube. We had to undo the bottoms of all the belt loops so the zipper seam could go behind them, and we still had all those thick jeans seams to sew through.

We reclosed the belt loops and installed the backpack straps as a "belt" through the back three belt loops while the jeans top was still a tube and easier to handle.

To make the pouch hold more cargo but not stick out so much at the sides, we put small pleats on each side of the fly in front, and on the outer side of each pocket on the back side. We used the blue masking tape to secure the pleats and the front pockets during sewing. The bottom seam was sewn twice along the brown line. We then trimmed to a half-inch seam allowance (trimming off the bottoms of the front pockets) and zigzagged the seam edge.


Results

Here is the finished fanny pack. My daughter did all but the trickiest sewing, and this project certainly has helped improve her machine sewing skills. She also made a lanyard decoration for the back (and learned a new completion stitch from the Boondoggle Man).


The backpack straps are sewn together in the middle of the back, and the whole strap is sewn down. The front of the pack is meant to go against the body so doesn't have the strap.


The following shot shows the zipper opening:


Because we used adult womens' jeans, this fanny pack has some serious book capacity! I could easily get five paperbacks in it. Of course, it also has five functional jeans pockets.


"Honey, does this make my butt look big?"


Yeah, you don't even need to answer that question! Next time I'll have to make one of these out of a little black dress instead of some big baggy jeans! Or maybe bustles will come back in style...

Mom, Where Are My Pants?

My younger daughter has had just about enough of my "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" obsession. I've mentioned before that I save every pair of jeans my family outgrows or wears out, but it's more than just jeans.

Junk Salvage

Recently I took apart an abandoned pink "Disney Princesses" backpack to salvage the straps, zippers, and what hardware I could.
"Mom, I liked that backpack!"
"You haven't used it in over a year. Trust me, honey, you didn't want to see what was growing in those pockets!"

My other daughter had one of those all-in-one binder cases. It zips around the edge, has pockets to hold folders and pencils, has a three-ring binder, and has a shoulder strap with clips at each end.


She abandoned it when the zipper broke and spilled all her stuff out. It's big, and I figured it had to be good for something, so I put it aside and hung onto it (and I wonder why it's hard to walk around in my house!). So the other day I took my seam ripper and a hammer and went to it. I was amazed at how much work had gone into making it--some parts of it had 5 or 6 seams layered on top of each other! It was constructed in modules: the folder pocket, the pencil pocket, the backing module, the strap module, and so on, ending with the edging tape. Each one was pretty much self-contained and then layered onto the whole. I ended up tossing most of it after my reverse-engineering session, but the strap and related hardware are useful.



[Once again I marvel at the differences in the economic and labor structure between the US and China, where this was made. I think this binder case cost about $12 USD at Costco. Assuming the retail store had doubled the wholesale price, that doesn't leave much money to pay for the labor to make the binder case! If it had been made here, it probably would have cost $40!]

An old kids' winter jacket provides zippers, pull cords and those little barrel-shaped cord locks, among other things.

The Goal

With all my collected junk at hand, it was time to put my plan into action. I have recently started taking yoga. I like it, but the mat is kind of unwieldy, so I need a bag to carry it in. I looked on the Web and found lots of them, but they ran $20-$85! More than I want to spent on a glorified tote bag. I also found a couple of sewing patterns. The free yoga bag pattern by Amy Butler seems to be popular. Nothing was quite what I wanted (nothing was tie-dyed!), but I got a few ideas.

I used a couple pairs of my kids' old jeans, one sized 4T (not tie-dyed) and one size 6X (faded and previously tie-dyed). I cut the legs off the 4T, then separated the top front from the top back--I want to use the elastic waistband in the back, and I love the look of those little jeans pockets. I ripped open the inseam of the 6X pants, then sewed the legs together down the front and back to make a big tube. I made the seam allowance bigger at the crotch to lessen the shaping at the crotch (that is, I cut off part of that extra bit that goes between the legs). I didn't make it completely flat, so it's a little roomier in the seat. In the following picture you can see the new seam holding the legs together. I top-stitched the new seam to lie flatter.


On the front of the tube, I top-stitched on the rear end of the 4T jeans as a big pocket. Since I didn't undo the side seams of the 6X pants, I had to wrestle with getting the fabric through my sewing machine without sewing through more layers than I wanted. But I managed. With the elastic waistband, this is a great pocket for a water bottle. I just love the cute little ribbon-and-bead pocket embellishment! My daughter loved these jeans, and she howled when she saw I'd used them--never mind that they had holes in the knees and were three sizes too small!


Next came the second pocket, made from the front of the 4T jeans. Here I used a zipper (with that cute pompom zipper pull) that I scavenged from the pink backpack previously. First I sewed one side of the zipper to the waistband, then I sewed the other side of the (zipped) zipper to the big 6X tube with the pocket wrong side out like a big flap. Finally I sewed the pocket down onto the tube and top-stitched it.

Last, I sewed the bottom of the tube shut, matching the existing hem seaming as best I could. I included the heavy-duty plastic D-rings on their straps that I had salvaged from the binder case.


I hooked the other end of the binder case strap to one of the sturdy back belt loops of the 6X pants. Here's the back veiw of the finished bag:


I left the snap and zipper of the 6X pants usable because it makes it easier to get the yoga mat in and out. I had sewed up the snap and zipper for the pants that became the second pocket.

Here's the front view of the nearly-finished bag:


I added an elastic drawstring and cord lock (from the winter jacket) through the top belt loops, and voila! I'm ready to go to yoga class anytime.

And even though they aren't offering any yoga classes, I may bring my bag along when I go to the Maker Faire this weekend, just to show it off. :-)

Happy Ending

Oh yes. My daughter's 4T pants have a happy ending after all. Besides that ribbon-and-bead embellishment on the back pocket, they had an applique on one leg front of a star and a heart with more ribbons. I cut that out, cut out another heart from the same jeans leg, and ironed them on as knee patches with fusible webbing. I finished the edges with fabric paint.

So the dark blue jeans get a little more life thanks to patches over the holey knees, and my daughter gets to enjoy her embellishments a little longer.

I just love a happy ending; don't you?