My Vinyl Wasn’t Final

You may have remembered when I had a couple vinyl chair that looked like this:

These were rather dirty vinyl chairs from the 1960’s. They were airport terminal chairs that came from France. Together they cost me 70 euros at an antique store in Germany. Also, the board which the cushion was sitting on was particle board that was crumbling apart, as pictured below.

My father cut me a couple new boards for the cushions to rest on. Instead of particle board that was 60 years old and disintegrating, he used ply wood like this:

I changed the vinyl to look like this (my first upholstery attempt). My first attempt at sewing with vinyl too. You may remember when I blogged about it here: Vinyl Chairs My First Try

But I realized that I actually really liked the original white look of the chairs so I went and bought white vinyl and started the process again.

And I did both chairs this time in white vinyl. Slightly different pattern.

And I did the other chair in the same original style but with a seam down the middle to effectively use my vinyl without having to purchase more, if you know what I mean. I button tufted the seat cushion (first attempt at button tufting too!). I can’t wait to do more button tufting!

And here they are together with some semi-cute pillows I sewed.

FELT IS SO FUN!!!! HOW TO USE IT?

For a while now I have been experimenting with felt and its sundry uses. You know, that plush, soft, fuzzy stuff that is made from PLASTIC BAGS??!! YES! RECYCLED PLASTIC BAGS! You can get it in sheets at your local fabric store or even places like Michaels, Walmart or Hobby Lobby–usually $1-$1.50 per sheet. I buy a ton when it goes down to 50 cents a sheet at Joann Fabrics.

It looks kind of like this. Always keep a bag of cut-up scraps. Also, have your glue gun handy. This is how I attach cut felt pieces together.

Felt is bright and colorful. It’s durable and fun to cut up and use! You can sew it on things. (I cut up my husband’s old shirts and turn them into boy shirts). I finish them off with felt appliques that I design, cut out and sew on. Here are 3 (toddler) boy shirts I made from scratch this week. 2 of them have felt applications. You can see my felt elephant and palm tree.

You can also make a FELT BOARD as I like to call it. It reminds me of the flannel graph board that was used by missionaries and in Sunday schools in the 70’s and 80’s. I took an old canvas and covered it with the non-slip stuff that you put under rugs. This non-slip material was being stored in a closet and not being used….so why not?

Then you staple it on a canvas or board and put a bunch of velcro pieces on it. Children who haven’t watched a ton of television like to stick the felt pieces on the board and make up stories.

Like this:

You can also make your own fun felt books as I have here:

Felt is so much fun! Cutting it out and making your own creations with a glue gun is one of my favorite things to do. Bonus: the kids get a new thing to play with!

My $5.00 Thrift Store OTTOMAN REMODEL. BEFORE AND AFTER

Anchorage Earthquake Recap

We made it through the big 7.0 earthquake here in Anchorage, Alaska (Friday November 30th 2018 at 8:29am). Thank you very much! There were no fatalities here, just lots of damage to our city. We have lots to be thankful for right now–especially for people. We thank scientists, engineers and strong building codes. The famous Haiti earthquake of 2010 killed 300,000 people and was also a 7.0.

Where was I during the earthquake? In the kitchen. I had just finished cleaning up after breakfast. As usual, Samson was covered in food and would need the usual 5-7 minute wipe down. I looked at the clock. It was 8:21 am. I removed him from his highchair and he started to wander into the living room. I started to walk to the coffee pot when I started to hear a rumble and a little shaking. “Earthquake” I shouted.

Without hesitation I scooped up both of my children. I dashed right into the hallway/doorway area. All I could do was shield both of them with my body as the house began to shake uncontrollably. The house was having a grand mal and I didn’t know what to do.

The painters, who earlier in the week were at the tip-top of a giant ladder painting our 20+ foot tall walls had now progressed to the shorter walls in the hallways and kitchen. As luck would have it, neither were on a ladder when the big quake started.

All I remember is a lot of real fright and cursing from all of us. I guess it didn’t last that long. But it seemed like an eternity. Both of our painters were life-long Alaskans. “Is this fairly normal to experience this?” I asked during the quake. “No. Never felt anything like this.” they said.

This past week has been one seizure after another…one aftershock after another. Sometimes I feel like I’m on a boat at sea.

My Thrift Store Ottoman Remodel

On the brighter side, I finally finished the ottoman I have been incrementally working on for 2 months.

In October I came across this old $5.00 Ottoman. I had to snatch it. Of course, a refreshment would be needed.

And here is a close up. The top vinyl covering was starting to break down.

Good news. The underlying structure and foam padding on this Ottoman were in terrific shape. All I needed to do was cut off the old vinyl fabric right along the seams and learn how to sew a snug, new one. Another sewing challenge for me.

Cut off all the vinyl material that covers the ottoman along the seams. Avoid puncturing the underlying foam.
Keep the old material that covers the ottoman. You will use it as your pattern for sewing a new one. Find some material (or vinyl) that you’d like to be the new cover. I used leftover vinyl from this project!
Once you sew the cover for the ottoman, find a neat decorative fringe/trim at Joann’s Fabric to attach to the bottom part of the vinyl. These are a bit spendy. However, just bring in your 50% coupon to use for one item and you can get 2.5 yards of this fancy stuff for around $20. I attached this trim by sewing it onto the bottom, open section of the vinyl. You could probably glue gun it, but I wanted it to be securely attached for a LONG TIME.
Once you sew your vinyl cover and before you snug it onto your ottoman, put it in your dryer for 10-25 seconds on LOW HEAT. Do this with extreme caution! I thought of this idea and realized that it works, but do it only for a few seconds on low heat. It will soften the vinyl just enough so that you can fit it around your ottoman.

YOU WANT TO GET THE BEST POSSIBLE FIT SO THAT IT DOESN’T LOOK TOO FUNKY.

Here is the old vinyl that I cut from the ottoman. Use this as your pattern to sew your new cover. You get the idea.

Here is the finished product.

I MADE A SUMMER TANK TOP (AND A YELLOW SKIRT TOO!)

I think it was Jordan Peterson who said, “Compare yourself to who you were the day before, not to who someone else is today.”

Learning to sew clothes has been a trial and error process–but I’m learning to compare my sewing to how I was sewing a few weeks ago…a few years ago. I’m terrible with spatial cognition. I don’t see things very quickly. My visual processing speed is delayed (compared to others) and my mind has a hard time manipulating objects in space and considering alternative, yet accurate positions.

Sewing has been a rough pursuit but it’s EXACTLY WHAT I NEED. I need to have some outlet for strengthening these intellectual capacities. Even better, I get to meld my penchant for creativity and art with this hobby. I don’t think there is any activity that gives me more FLOW than attempting to SEW. Sorry. Bad rhyme.

It’s the designing part that really draws me in. Attempting to design a piece of clothing and then sewing it. Ahh, nothing feels quite like it–especially when I get it roughly right. Painting is a close second.

I’m realizing that I need to take more risks with design and sewing. I often worry that “I’ll be wasting fabric”, so I hesitate to try something. It’s super easy to mess up! I’ve done it repeatedly even when making a fastidious effort to follow instructions.

If I go all the way off the tracks, can’t I expect to have a mess on my hands and fabric that will end up becoming pillow stuffing? YES. But compared to nonexistence, making mistakes is BLISSFUL!

I’ve started to get more creative and worry less about my final product. I work with what I have–mistakes and all, and try to come up with something. So far, I’m figuring things out.

I was having THE MOST DIFFICULT TIME with this TANK TOP that I designed. It would be the first shirt/tank top I have made for myself. I made enough mistakes to call it quits. I kept adding on and cutting and changing things around.

I used a knit fabric and here is where I started. I also added some teal knit fabric to it because the tank top WAS TOO SHORT.

And here is my final result! I zig zag stitched the edges around the tank top and a ruffle emerged! INSTANT FASHION!

If you look closely (or maybe even from a distance) you’ll notice its asymmetric. Not on purpose of course, but I’m pretending it was intentional. You can see how the sleeves/shoulder straps (or, whatever you call them) are of different widths.

Not gonna lie, I LOVE IT! IT FITS PERFECTLY. Then again, you’ve got to be pretty bad if you can’t fit into a knit!

I’m just so pleased with it, especially considering how it was looking beforehand, how I didn’t use a real pattern…I just pulled it out of no where. Adding that extra strip of teal fabric from my stash not only added to the length–which I desperately needed–but gave it a fashionista look.

To think I almost threw out this wad of fabric, but I kept going with it, kept playing around.

I’m so happy I kept playing around with it! It fit perfectly–as knits have lots of stretchy give to them. Perfect for hot summer.

Summer Tank Top I designed. Skirt in pic is store-bought.

Here is some cheap fabric that I bought from Walmart. I had pieced it together–almost like pillow cases and then started to randomly sew. I didn’t know what I was doing here. I thought, why not sew it all together and form it into a skirt?

And here is my final skirt result after MANY CHANGES. It was tough to get it just right! I installed a long, 7 or 8 inch zipper in the back and lots of random, off-kilter darts. But who cares? Notice that I added a piece of fringe polka dot fabric on the bottom for extra flair and zig zag stitched the edge! Still, a very simple look.

The trick to making a skirt is wrapping some fabric around your waist and then going from there. That’s all I do. Once you have a rough idea of how much fabric you’ll need for your size, you just start sewing. Towards the end you decide…do I want to add a top waist placket? Do I want to add a zipper or elastic? You can make those decisions later.

The best part? It FITS PERFECTLY! Hello Summer. I feel like I should be behind a Lemonade Stand or something.

How about some homemade lemonade spiked with some Pinot Grigio? Chilled white wine is PERFECT for a summer evening on your porch with your Kindle. I’m still trying to finish Ben Sasse’s book “The Vanishing American Adult”.

The key to sewing is not being discouraged by Nazi seamstresses who keep insisting that “There’s only one way to do it”.

Keep trying and keep thinking up creative combinations. You don’t have to follow someone else’s script. You’ll improve with measurements and sewing machine accuracy eventually–but let that go for now! Put your focus on the fun part–THE DESIGN! It will motivate you to keep going!

Refurbishing Vintage Baby Shoes with SPRAY PAINT for less than $4.00!!!

Not long ago I was at my Mom’s house, rummaging through a box of one of my brother’s “keepsakes” and “baby items”. This box was no younger than 38 years old and wedged tightly on the cement floor of the storage room–at the bottom of the shelves. As you know, I’m always looking for an interesting, useful find and wanted to see if there was anything that could be salvaged and used for my little ones.

Sure enough, I found the perfect pair of baby shoes in all their aged radiance and splendor! I think these are much, much older than 38 years, but who cares?

I decided that I would take these little cuties on a 5 hour drive back to our house in central Oregon and see if I could fix-them-up. After all, they would still be sitting in that box in the basement for the rest of their existence, so why not? I decided on glossy white spray paint. Here is the one I used:

MY METHOD:

First, I used a very fine grained sand paper and sanded the rough areas of the shoes. Next, I washed them with soap, water and a toothbrush. I allowed them to dry over night. The next day I applied painters tape to the parts of the shoe that I didn’t want to be touched by paint.

I spray painted the shoes 1x and let them set and dry for over a week. Then, I spray painted them a second time. I separately washed the shoe laces with soap and water and then put them in a small bowl with 2 teaspoons bleach, 1 tablespoon of baking soda with about 1 cup or so of water. I allowed them to sit for a couple hours and then rinsed them and let them dry on the window sill. Finally, I laced up the shoes and voila, here is my result.

These shoes looked rejuvenated and ready to wear when baby boy is a little bigger. Not perfect, but certainly much better than before. I’m excited how they turned out and even more excited that they can be used again instead of sitting in a box, buried in a basement somewhere in eastern Oregon.

Thank you for checking out my little blog. There will be lots to write about with all of our upcoming adventures.

$5.50 Toddler Outfit I just made!!!

Yes! I found really cheap fabric in the Joann Fabric discount area. The pink fluffy stuff was $2.50 a yard– and the black and white stuff was roughly the same price– maybe $3.00 per yard.

I agree. Time is money too. But if you’re learning a new skill on top of getting a new outfit, I think it’s well spent.

So I spent $5.50 for this fabric here:

Then I went to make the shirt. Yes, I’m still practicing on my “shirt making”. I have a long way to go. Sleeves are such a pain but I’m slowly getting the hang of it.

I found some pink Terry cloth scraps from an old project to use for the shirt collar.

And…done. pink toddler shirt for $2.50. Plus, I have fabric leftovers for something else.

Now, for the pants 😋 using an old toddler pants pattern.

And here they are! Adorable pants with 2 inch width elastic waistband. They’re slightly long so she can wear them for a long time.

Here she is with her new shirt. Based on her facial expression, I think she loves it.

And here…with the entire outfit on. Looking at books in her bedroom.

Homemade sew job complete. Now on to other ideas.

I Made SOCKS from Worn Out LEGGINGS!

https://asliceofmytravels.wordpress.com/2018/03/15/i-made-socks-from-worn-out-leggings/I’ve always been a minimalist when it comes to socks. I’ve never owned more than 7 pairs of socks at any given time– and this includes that comfy pair you pull out during winter months and also that funky pair with bright pictures on it.

My Sock Drawer (I think 2 pairs of my socks are in the laundry):

Currently, all of my socks have holes in them (for the past couple years) so It dawned on me that I should get some new ones. But who wants to buy socks? And for the going price of nearly $12 a pair, I don’t think so!

What I decided to do was take some stretch pants that are full of pillings, fuzz and damage and turn them into socks. I thought, once turned inside out, they would be perfect material for a snug pair of socks.

You know when your stretchy leggings start to look awful?? Sure, you bought them at Ross 4 years ago for $6.99– but they’re ready to be recycled now.

Well, let’s turn them into socks, sounds Good? Use an old pair of your socks like this as a “template”. Next, cut around the sock and sew!

Here they are on my feet. Socks from old worn out leggings– they FEEL GREAT!

I’m sure with this pair of leggings I can probably get 3-4 pairs of socks! Also, make sure and save the waist elastic from the leggings to use on another sewing project!

I plan to make a bunch of socks over the next few months so please stay tuned!

PS: This is my first blog post I did 100% on my phone while simultaneously breastfeeding my baby. A bit tough, so excuse the cursory job. Now to change a diaper.

A Slice of My Trash, Travels and Tots

A Slice of My Travels and Baby Blog

Category: sewing