A couple of weeks ago, I tried adjusting some t-shirts that were too long for Jez, but it was a bit of a disaster. The t-shirts had been bought before we moved, and since then we have both managed to loose quite a bit of weight. Yay!
Unfortunately, this meant that the shortened t-shirts looked ridiculous. I threw them back in the wardrobe to use the fabric for something else. I’m now considering deconstructing them and rebuilding them in a smaller size, retaining the neck band if I can. But that’s for another day.
Today, I completed my first successful sewing project in a long time, and I only started it yesterday. I had some leftover fabric that I thought would make a good cover for my electric piano. It came from some Ikea curtains I had shortened for my office. Up until now I’ve just been using some cheap yellow and white spotted fabric that I impulse bought years ago to keep the dust off my piano. It often slides off, and is a bit of an eyesore in the music room.
Yesterday, I started taking measurements and working out how to construct the cover. I wanted to create something that would:
- be easy to put on and take off,
- fit around the attached music stand, and
- not slide off.
Here are my doodlings:
I cut out the pattern pieces last night, although I wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to fasten the cover at the back. I thought probably with Velcro, which I would have to order, but I thought I’d wait until I got to that bit to work it out.
This morning I started piecing it all together, and didn’t have any problems. It all went together nicely and fit as I intended.
In the end, after chatting with Jez about it, I decided I would go for a Velcro fastening. I’ve ordered some which should arrive on Monday. In the meantime, the cover still does it’s job and I’ve just pinned it together with some fabric clips for now.
I particularly enjoy constructing covers from object measurements. I’ve had two other examples of this with the Guitar and Bass Amp Covers and the Chair Cover for Cape Beauty, and they came together better than I had expected on both occasions.
It looks like I have the sewing and blogging bug back. Hooray!
Since realising that I didn’t have much me-made clothing I could wear on a regular basis, I had been feeling inspired to complete a UFO (unfinished object) that’s been hanging around for a while. This would also give me another blouse to wear during May at work.
Before I started making clothes, I used to make tote bags. They were a simple design that was easy to repeat and to customise with all kinds of applique, some simpler than others – like my current music book bag, which is a design cut from a favorite worn out t-shirt. I use this bag to carry around all my ukulele music books, many of them created by my boyfriend (such as ‘
Quite understandably, my boyfriend asked if I could turn them around, and while I had the lining detached I was able to add an applique design. Jez drew a skull and cross bones pattern, which I cut it out of the red twill and sewed onto a square of the musical fabric ready to attach to the bag.
For the Black and White Gypsy Top, I used some fabric from 
The Purple Gingham Gypsy Top was made to wear instead of my several RTW plaid shirts when playing with my band ‘
My boyfriend is an amazing musician who loves the music of the 1960s, as well as many other genres. He has always wanted a Monkee’s shirt, but has never been able to find one. I’ve googled for them and they are really hard to find. There are some hand-made ones available online, but they are very expensive and tend to ship to the US only …so I decided to have a go myself.
The fabric I used was a red twill, and the thickness made turning the collar and cuffs out and getting sharp corners quite difficult. When I was creating the button holes on the cuffs I realised that I should have removed more thickness from the seams, as I had quite a bit of trouble getting the automatic buttonhole foot to work correctly due to the fabric bulk. I’ll note that for future and probably use thinner fabric too, although this shirt will be really hard-wearing and last a long time. We were both pleased with the results in the end, but I think I’ll wait a little while before I make another.
One of my other hobbies is playing the bass guitar, which pairs perfectly with my boyfriend’s love of music (including playing the electric guitar). We each have an amp that we use for practicing and intimate gigs, as well as a more powerful one that we use for performances at larger venues. There are times when the performance amps may spend quite a bit of time gathering dust in the corner of our music room, especially if we are doing mainly smaller gigs that don’t need too much volume or we’re focusing on acoustic music.
When I was last sewing I made a tissue box cover, so I simply used the same principal to make a rectangular cover with a hole in the middle for the handle of the amp.
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