Hemming by Machine

One pair of the jeans I thrifted back in April were too long for me, which sadly isn't unusual. As a senior I've shrunk down to 5'3, and even before that I usually had to hem by hand whatever pants I bought. Jeans tend to be tough to hand sew because of the heaviness of the denim and the thick seams. Unfortunately my arthritis doesn't want me hand stitching denim, so I decided to try hemming this pair on my sewing machine.

The first step to how I hem is to mark where I want the bottom of the hem by cuffing and pinning like this.

I then mark the bottom of the hem with a pin and cut off the excess fabric an inch below it.

I use the cut-off piece of fabric as a template to do the same thing to the other leg (my right leg is a little shorter than my left, but not noticeably.)

I then double fold the end and pin it in a half-inch hem. This is where I usually start hand-sewing, but this time I used my sewing machine. I chose to use black thread because I didn't have a bobbin with navy, and I went slowly. I turned the needle by hand when I reached the seams to avoid breaking the needle, which can happen with denim.

It worked! Here are the finished jeans. Very happy I tried this. :)

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Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

Love Means This

Invested in a couple of hand-dyed bundles from one of my favorite fabric artists. This one said "Make me into something for Valentine's Day." So I went for a quilted and embellished tote. I kept thinking about what love means to me as I worked on it. Here's the finished tote. Although I was tempted to embellish with beads and pins, I got sick and only felt well enough to do a little stitching every night. As I worked I thought about how often love seems disappointing to us, especially when it fails to live up to our expectations. But now that I've experienced love in many forms, I can say that it's made me a better person than I might have been without it. Love is a precious thing, and should be appreciated in all its forms. I am very grateful for the love of my guy, my child and my friends who have stuck with me all these years. That's you two, in case you're wondering. :) Also finally found something to do with a ve...

Valerean

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