I Mended my Pants

The knee on my favorite fawn-colored cords had a rip, so I stuck a piece of calico on the back and applied some creative zig-zagging on my straight-and-zig-zag-only sewing machine. It won't prevent further demise of the pants, (as you can see where the fabric has thinned to almost transparent,) but these are my favorite pair of pants and great for cool-weather gardening so I'm hoping it will last this season.

I'm not a good seamstress, but then neither is my sewing machine. The model was discontinued in the 80's with the influx of computerized machines with embroidery, but there were folks like me who wanted to sew only straight or zig zag, backward and forward, so the manufacturer had to bring back the model, and it was cheaper and smaller than others. (In Japan, Ben and I lived in a 42 square meter apartment.) I thought it was great at the start, but it doesn't allow tension control of the bottom thread, (the one in the bobbin,) only the top, nor really fine-tune the size of the stitches or accommodate different thicknesses of the fabric, so it's OK for dealing with simple cotton/blends but not much else. Although it could be the operator lacking knowledge.

Where am I going with this? They're behind my cords. Today's task was making calico bags for posting my pieces. (Something else I should have done before the Sale went public.) I don't have a big enough surface so I cut my fabric on wool carpet, using sticks around the loom to draw straight lines. With the current lot in the Pop-Up shop, I only needed to cut them weft-wise, fold in half, make two French seams, and sew on my big label. Although fluffy and somewhat unruly, I used calico's selvedge for the open part of bag. Sounds simple, doesn't it?

I still don't blame my sewing machine, but suffice it to say, these are nothing to write home about; in addition, I never knew calico is this stiff. I'll try not to loose too much sleep over these; they come free with the pieces. Still, I wished I could do a better job.

I ordered plastic Size 6 envelops that go over this yesterday, (yet one more thing I should have done before, blah, blah.) Ben's going to get one sample Size 6 envelope tomorrow so we can pack and reply with correct P/P to inquiries.

However, I am happy my big labels came into good use. I've been hesitating to put on any label on anything as they are stiffer than cashmere, especially, but also finer merinos and cotton pieces. Plus I don't like assigning A-/B-sides on a piece. Calico bags were all Doni's idea, and she gave me plenty more advice, but I couldn't find the picture of her superior model today.

I am enjoying communicating about my pieces with folks. That's the good part of my Pop-Up Sales.