A Quick Grocery Bag

Last August I made a shopping bag from a T-shirt, following directions in the book Generation T. See that post.

The directions in the book had me measuring and cutting a shape from the front to make it very much like the plastic bags. That shape bit into the design on the front, however. So those T-shirts that have designs fairly close to the top would not be suitable for that project.

Martha Stewart has another version. You can go to marthastewart.com and hunt it down but I'll tell you the directions right here because it's so easy:

1. Turn the T-shirt inside out. sew the bottom closed, using the seam as a guide.

2. Take a medium-sized mixing bowl (about 9" diameter, more or less). Lay the T-shirt on a flat surface, flat. Place the bowl over the neck opening, making a half-circle shape wider than the neck. Use an air-erasable or water-erasable pen to draw the half-circle onto the T-shirt.

3. Cut out the larger neck opening.

4. Cut off the sleeves along the inside of the seamline.

That's it.

You can, of course, modify it. To make the bag handles narrower I tucked the ends under and sewed a zigzag through the layers. You can also zigzag the raw edges or serge them if you want to get fancy.

Oh, and that's Henry Miller on my t-shirt bag up there. Cool is the goal here.

A Cheater Pillow

Here is the situation:

1. When I sew I keep the scraps. I save them in a plastic box. That box has been getting really full.

2. I have too many T-shirts. I hate to give them away because there are memories behind so many of them. But I need to lighten the load.

So I turned to my handy Generation T book for the instructions to make a pillow from a T-shirt. The instructions are really simple, so I'll simply describe them here:

Cut the largest square you can from the T-shirt, cutting through both layers. Cut a fringe all around, two inches deep, each fringe piece about 1/2" wide, plus or minus. Tie front and back fringe pieces together, using double knots, leaving an opening to stuff. Stuff with whatever you have available. In my case, the fabric scraps. Then tie the rest of the fringes. My pillow is lumpy and a bit heavy but I think that's fine. And there is no sewing involved in this project so maybe it doesn't exactly fit the blog, but where else can I brag about it?

The first vest

In my sewing marathon last Tuesday I started and almost finished this vest. I added buttonholes and buttons at home yesterday. I am still not so good at getting the buttons and holes exactly where I want them. I think this is a matter of marking as much as anything else, of doing a good job marking.

The vest was intended for my grandson, who wants to be a "mafia guy" for Halloween. Unfortunately, as I progressed in making it I realized it was not long enough for his long torso. The chest size was right and the waist okay but when I looked at it I was sure it was not long enough. So I called my daughter and she measured her son from shoulder to waist and that confirmed it.

I am now in the process of modifying the pattern to fit him. The bitch of it is that I could not find a pattern closer to his size. The pattern I got - and just about all of the others I found - is multi-sized for both men and boys. You'd think that would cover it but it doesn't. The boys' sizes are S, M, L, and the L is not large enough. But the small men's size is way too large. So I have decided to adjust just the length - and a tiny bit of the waist - and see how that goes.

I may have a problem with having enough fabric but I don't think so. I found two clothing items at the Goodwill Outlet last week, both of them pin-striped, one a pair of slacks and the other a suit jacket, and I think one way or another I will have enough. I only need enough of this fabric for the front, after all, just those two pieces. If I need to buy more black satin for the lining and back then so be it.

What tips did I garner from class Tuesday?

One in particular: you can make a dress form from duct tape and a large T-shirt. And some kind of stand, like a Christmas tree stand. This subject came up at lunch and it reminded me of the sculptures you can make with clear packing tape. I suppose packing tape would work for the dress form too, but duct tape is probably better for pinning. By the way, there are several videos on YouTube on how to make one of these.

Also: sharpening scissors: go to a knife shop, where they will sharpen them right there and do a good job. If you take your shears to a sewing store they will send them out.

A laptop sleeve

I browsed though the T-shirt book again (see this post about Generation T) a few days ago and decided to make a laptop sleeve. From two T-shirts. I hunted through my T-shirts and chose two I thought would be good for it and proceeded to cut.

One thing about this book: just about everything in it is sewn by hand. It isn't necessary to sew by hand (and in fact the book even offers additional tricky ways to connect pieces that involve no sewing at all) and initially I intended to sew this sleeve by machine. But there is a difference in how it looks when the stitches are visible and so ultimately I decided to go ahead and sew it by hand myself. I rather like how it looks, even though I can already see how I could have done better:

The front:

The back:

:

In case you're wondering, what it says on the front is "Pismo Beach: delightfully tacky since 1946". Too true, too true! And also my birth year. Made for me.

You can see that the edges are ragged, something I could have avoided if I had cut more carefully, used a rotary cutter, used a cardboard pattern, for example. I could also have sewn it so that the seams were inside but this look has a certain charm.

Making it fit

Of late, I have been doing quickie projects out of T-shirts and other cast-offs. I made three more cat rice-catnip pillows from used pillow cases, to go to a shelter, and another reusable shopping bag from a T-shirt. I had been eyeing one of my cat beds. A visiting doggie had eaten the soft pillow that lined the bed so I decided to make another one from a T-shirt.

My thinking on the size: T-shirts stretch so if I make it approximately the size of the space it should stretch and flatten out and fill the space reasonably well. I wasn't counting on how the stuffing material would affect this outcome, however.

I recently picked up a partial bag of "polyfil" - aka "premium polyester fiberfill" at a thrift store outlet. Cost me 25 cents. So I figured this would do the job and I might throw in some T-shirt scraps as well.

In the past - deep, dark past - I had used kapok for stuffing stuff. This polyfil is a whole new thing. It's bouncy, it's washable, it keeps a shape. And it doesn't flatten down.

Thus this fit. Or lack of fit. That baby isn't flattening out to fit the shape.


However, the proof is in the pudding. The cat likes it. That's all I really wanted. But in the future I will make allowances for the amount of "loft" or whatever it's called, so my pillows fit the space better.

Fun with T-shirts

Following directions in my Generation T book, I made this reusable bag from a T-shirt. I hand-sewed it just because I wanted to, and it looks cool.



Here it is, filled. With...dare I say it?? ...bargain fabrics. I fear I am becoming hopelessly addicted. And yet I think it's good. It's a good kind of addiction.

For the doggie and the cup of coffee

I just finished two little projects, neither of which came out particularly well. I had second thoughts along the way and decided I needed to finish them even if they would never go anywhere after that.

The first was a doggie "vest" made from a T-shirt. I intended it for my daughter's dog Floyd. I had measurements for him and originally was going to make him a little jacket from a book of dog clothes patterns. I ran into some irritating things about that pattern so I figured I'd start with something easier. I turned to another book:


I got these two books recently from Better World Books, relying on ratings and price. Of the two, Generation T: Beyond Fashion is the clear winner. Although I doubt I have use for most of the projects in it, the sheer creativity and tips on putting pieces together are worth a lot. You could make most of them without sewing at all, in fact. Most of the fashions are clearly for young women, and hip young women at that. I am not young nor am I hip and I have never been hip. Still, I really like this book and this is where I found the directions for making a doggie vest.

What I produced was this:



And because I didn't measure things very well, I chose not to offer it to Floyd. Besides, it just isn't that good-looking. I did try it on my cat Stretch:


Here's the thing. It isn't a great piece of work but I learned some things along the way. The experience was worth it.

The other thing I made came from a website called the object project. It's a corduroy coffee cup sleeve with a picture on it. I didn't trace the shape of the sleeve as accurately as I could so it isn't perfect. Still, it looks pretty good and I think I actually will give it to somebody. It satisfies my recycling need, too.


Tomorrow I start a beginning sewing class at Adult Ed school. It's six weeks long. I have a lot of hope for this class.