Fur, Hems, and Bags!

Today I am begging off my Next Level Sewing. It's been a rough week around here. My hubby spent the week in the hospital with a serious infection and will need surgery soon. I no sooner got him home than I woke up Saturday morning with a dreadful cold. Right now I am just looking forward to a hot steamy shower to loosen some of this yuk out of my head and chest. I figured yesterday would  be a great time to face some little mending and some other projects that needed small spans of attention. No real mojo happening this weekend! But I do think there is a little to be learned in what I managed to do so I am passing it along.

First project was the bag. I purchased this bag before Thanksgiving, of course threw away the receipt, and not it is coming apart at the junction of the gusset, zipper and side. I LOVE THIS BAG. You will see it has a bit of bling  and is really pretty. Could I fix it? Upon inspection I think the junction was not sewn properly to begin with, Fast Fashion and all. But some how I was blinded by the bling when I bought the bag.

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I used a combination of glue and stitching with white bead "wire" to give a secure fix.  I stitched one side of the zipper leather first. I used a heavy tapestry needle and went through the existing holes with a backstitch. Once that was done I put a big blop of glue where the zipper, the leather part , crossed over the side of the bag and clamped it. Then I stitched the other side of the zipper leather to the side of the bag.  Then I clamped the whole thing to dry. 

After a few hours I removed the clamps and used a brown fabric marker to color the white thread. I then rubbed the too dark thread with alcohol and that weakend the color and all is fine. It looks really good now and we will see how it holds up. 

Next chore, two pair of pants that needed hems lowered. This has become standard procedure lately around here. I am five feet tall and every pair of pants I buy needs shortening. I take up the hem. I double fold and try to make it look like the original hemline. Then a couple of months later the pants invevitably shrink despite all efforts at washing care and the hems need to be let down. To get max length back I need to lower them and what can happen is this is what you get:

A fringey, stringy mess that looks crappy. Here's how I handled it. 

I cut a strip of  fusible tricot that is wider than the edge of the hem to past the original stitching of the previous hemline. I place it right on the edge of the pant leg and fuse.

Now it is off to the machine with my edge stitching foot and I edge stitch to secure further the tricot to the pant leg. 

Sometimes I will stitch again further up to imitate the original as I did on these knit pants. 

The knit is  not too bad but you can see a nasty white line on the corduroy pants from the previous hem. Here's how I've dealt with that.  BTW, all these pics have been major lightened so you can see the detail. They look better IRL. 

On these cords I took a black sharpie and LIGHTLY rubbed it on the old hemline. Then I dipped a Qtip into good old rubbing alcohol and lightly rubbed the sharpie line to  blend it into the pants. I think you can see the difference between left and right here. I really like  both these pants and can now wear them beyond the two months it took to shrink them into near oblivion. Hope this hint helps some of you. Two pair of pants back in the rotation!

And now for the piece de resistance! My DD's mother in law had a fur coat made about ten years ago. She became tired of it, full length, and took it to be restyled. Evidently it is proper to return the not needed fur to the client. She had a muff made for my grandaughter and sent me the remaining leftovers. I thought it was very generous of her and I now have this windfall to play with. 

You can see the two sleeves they cut off. What  I really found interesting was the inside of the fur.  Here's a few pics:

Pretty fascinating, isn't it? This could maybe be a fur collar for my cashmere coat, a great hat, or just a cowl to be thrown over whatever. Any ideas? 

That's this week's output from the cave. My felt jacket is now totally done with it's covered shoulder pads but today is not a good one for modeling pics. They will come with a review of the pattern soon. Next Level Sewing will return as life settles down as well. Hope this nasty bug misses you all out there. I can't wait to get back in the cave! ....Bunny