Bekah Learns to Sew (Part 2)

And so the story continues... a girl with a dream of patchwork jeans, attempting to face the big scary sewing machine... part one to this story was pretty dramatic - brace yourselves for part two!

Aren't those colours pretty? Yesterday afternoon was declared sewing time - tunes were on, had some trusty snacks on hand (because Jelly Beans make everything better!)

Everything was pinned into place, and off I went! :-D Sewing the strips onto the foundation fabric proved to not be that difficult (remembering to iron in between seams)... especially since everything was pinned within an inch of it's life - the pile of pins after half a seam to prove it...

After sewing, pressing, and squaring up, I ended up with two rather lovely cuffs for my jeans, and ended the day very happy with what I had managed to accomplish :-)

The drama all began this morning... I woke up feeling very positive, thinking I had but 4 little seams to go, and then I would be done! Little did I know...

I joined each cuff in the round, and then began to pin it to the jean leg... but alas, disaster! It was too small! I knew it would be a tight fit (the rotary cutter, ruler and I were not very good friends - I had to battle them all the way through!), but not as much as this... I just knew I would end up with puckers and so many issues, that I decided that there was only one solution - add more fabric! Out came the seam ripper, and they once again reverted to how they were in the above photo... I figured out what size piece I needed (including seam allowances), and cut it out using a template I made. I was so stressed out with the rotary cutter and ruler by this point that doing it the old fashioned way seemed to be my only hope...

The additions...

I only realised after I joined them that lime green may not be the most co-ordinating of fabrics, but left them, thinking they were a quirky reminder of all the work put into these cuffs!

It was only now that I could truly enjoy the feeling of having 4 seams to go! I joined them in the round, pressed them into place, and sewed them to the jeans... 3 years after first starting to piece the cuffs, I am quite pleased with them!

And because I like to make more work for myself, I also did a bit of hand-stitching around the top of the cuffs and the pockets...

As much as this project has been stressful, and taken a few years to truly complete, I am quite pleased with the result, and have learnt a few things about myself too:

- Whereas hand-piecing makes me feel like I am in a Jane Austen novel, I feel more like something from a Stephen King novel when machine sewing!
- Never have I ever talked to myself (or my project) more than when working on this - "Please work, please work, please work!"
- I think I better leave sewing to my mom... yarn and I have a better relationship than I do with fabric!

Hope you've enjoyed reading about my sewing adventures!