ScrapHappy September 2022

It was time to turn a pair of hand-me-down straight-legged jeans into flares, and get rid of the bulky pockets at the back which made it look like I was growing two carbuncles on my backside.

I started with this tutorial and changed bits of it as I went along.

The inserts were cut from an old pair of jeans that had seen better days in certain areas, and were obviously never going to get mended while in my possession.

I zigzagged the inside seams because that wasn’t in the tutorial, and I also topstitched after ironing flat. Then I added a few random stitches in perle embroidery cotton. Different on each side. Because why not? I suppose I should have machined-stitched the hem in a light colour to match the original hem, but I was getting close to the end of the project and needed to finish it before running out of steam.

The horrible back pockets got ripped off and replaced with new ones from a pile of denim samples someone once gave me. I’ve been hoarding those samples for far too long and it’s time to use them up. I see now that I didn’t align the pockets when sewing – but finished is finished and it’s good enough for me.

I enjoyed doing this when I finally got around to it, especially when it came to putting a big tick next to “flare jeans” on the to-do list.

It’s only Kate’s ScrapHappy initiative that inspires me to write a blog post these days; I’m hoping to get some more creative energy flowing again soon. In the meantime, here’s a list of crafty people who also participate in ScrapHappy once a month:

Kate, Gun, Eva, Sue,Lynda,
Birthe,Turid,Susan,Cathy,  Tracy,
Jill, Jan, Moira,Sandra, Chris, Alys,
Claire, Jean, Jon, Dawn, Jule, Gwen,
Sunny,Kjerstin, Sue L, Vera,
Nanette, Ann, Dawn 2, Carol,
Preeti, Debbierose, Nóilin and Viv

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all puffed up

No, sorry, this post is not about puff adders – although we did go for a long walk last week in Pringle Bay and, halfway along, very far from the road, Andrew casually remarked that I should keep my eyes on the ground in case of puff adders.

I immediately froze. No, keep walking, he said, they can feel you coming and will simply move away. But what if it’s asleep? I screamed, and I’m the one to wake it up??? Just back away veeeeeery slowly, he said. I reminded him that my mother had recently woken up to find a cobra in a corner of her kitchen and I was still getting over the trauma, but he just laughed. I’m not sure it’s kind to laugh at another person’s fears so I yelled SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER and did my impression of a black widow to get back at him before continuing through the fynbos, stamping as hard as I could to scare off serpents as far afield as Mpumalanga.*

But I’ve digressed. The reference to puff is my lovely new Paddington top, designed by clever Sarah-May of French Navy Designs in Cape Town. She sells her patterns on etsy but this top was a free pattern from Peppermint Magazine and, for some unknown reason – because I’ve gone off machine-sewing lately – I had the urge to make it. The big puffy sleeves were the main attraction.

I used a piece of cotton from West Africa that someone gave me years ago, and which may have previously been used as a tablecloth. I have horrible arms – bingo wings, I believe they are known as in the north of England – so am always happy to cover them up as much as possible. The design was great and I’m so pleased with the result that I’m considering making a dress from the first pattern I ever bought when I was 22 and had just got my first sewing machine. It was navy cotton with tiny white dots and I wore it until it fell apart.

* Happy to report that no snakes or spiders or even baboons were seen, just a very fat mongoose and a tortoise later that day while sitting on a bench looking out at the sea.

ScrapHappy September 2020

I’ve been making soft pots. I have too many indoor and patio plants to be able to afford to buy a new ceramic potholder for each one, so this is my solution. I’ve fiddled with the design, and find that using stiff denim for the inside lining gives the pot perfect stability. Also, it looks great folded over. The denim was the only piece of fabric that wasn’t technically a scrap, although it was once someone else’s cushion leftovers.

Just for comparison, here are a couple of non-scrappy soft pots that will form part of my Christmas range:

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I’ve been inspired to think in a ScrapHappy way by Kate, Tall Tales from Chiconia. On the fifteenth of every month lots of folk often publish a ScrapHappy post, do check them out:

Kate, Gun, Titti, Heléne, Eva, Sue, Lynn, Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy,  Tracy, Jill, Claire, Jan,
Moira, Sandra, Linda, Chris, Nancy, Alys, Kerry, Claire, Jean,
Joanne, Jon, Hayley, Dawn, Gwen, Connie, Bekki, Pauline,
Sue L, Sunny, Kjerstin, Vera, Del and Nanette

scraphappy June 2020

I’ve been making lots of plant hangers lately, mostly from shweshwe cotton but also using some other lovely fabrics. Buuuuuuuut….there hasn’t yet been a patchwork one. I thought Kate’s scraphappy project was the perfect opportunity to give it a go.

And this is the view of it from the chair at my desk:

I overlocked the edges instead of double hemming like I do on the cotton ones, because I used scraps of upholstery weight fabric and thought it would look too bulky if I did it that way. The finishing isn’t perfect but it’s living with me in my house so I don’t mind :) I also didn’t bother too much about matching colours or textures – that, I figure, is half the point of using up my scraps!

Here are the links for everyone who joins ScrapHappy from time to time (they may not post every time, but their blogs are still worth looking at). I love looking at what everyone’s come up with!

Gun, Titti, Heléne, Eva, Sue, Lynn, Lynda, 
Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy,  Tracy, Claire, Jan,
Moira, Sandra, Linda, Chris, Nancy, Alys, Kerry, Claire, Jean,
Joanne, Jon, Hayley, Dawn, Gwen, Connie, Bekki, Pauline,
Sue L, Sunny, Kjerstin, Vera  and of course Kate herself.

ScrapHappy July

I picked up this little chap (I think it’s a kalanchoe) at a Christmas market in December, and he’s sat outside all these months without doing a thing. Two weeks ago I moved him to a shadier spot about three metres away, and he suddenly blossomed!

Fancy me leaving him in that grotty little plastic pot all this time. He deserved a bit of encouragement, so I made him a patchwork sleeve. I stitched a few scraps (leftovers from making yoga mat bags) into a piece the circumference of the pot (35cm), sewed the sides together, and hemmed the top and bottom. I had thought there might need to be elastic at the top, but it fits just fine.

Perhaps, like me, he was just going through a dormant period. Patience may teach me a few things yet…