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Tuesday 10 June 2014

Making a doorsnake at Newtown's Green Living Centre

After the MASSIVE heartbreaking debacle of my last sewing foray to say I'm feeling rather disenchanted with sewing would be the understatement of the millennium. I'm seriously considering throwing in the towel as I'm just not having much fun.

Not only have my machines betrayed me, I'm still having fitting issues nearly a year into sewing along with still having trouble finding patterns to fit my measurements (that are "my style"). As I lack the skills need to understand how to fix aforementioned sewing issues I often just make a toile of something and chuck it in the bin due to poor fit. I did try to adjust the Anita Ponti Pant pattern to fix my "plumbers crack issue" but it became pretty obvious pretty quickly that I had NFI what I was doing and if I cut into the new Ponti it would be another $30 of fabric down the drain. I also don't want to be sewing things just for the sake of it...that would lead to a closet full of stuff I'd never wear as well as being a bit fat waste of time and money. Woe is me, huh?

It's pretty clear what I need is some simple sewing...preferable not of clothes so we can avoid any fitting issues and accusing looks at my curvy thighs. Lucky for me I'd enrolled myself (and my sister) into a free "door snake" sewing class being held at Newtown's Green Living Centre.


During the class we would whip up a doorsnake to help keep the winter drafts at bay.  We were to bring along some old fabric from home and then stuff the snakes with old fabric scraps that would otherwise go into a landfill.


Juliet from Bobbin and Ink was running the class and provided all of the machines, thread, tools, stuffing fabrics and templates for our snakes. We could either make an actual snake shaped draft-stopper, or stick to tradition and go for the plain old snake.  Because I wanted NO f**kups during the class I chose to eliminate any potential issues that sewing a curved object might cause. It's the plain old snake for me.



I'm pleased to say that things went pretty smoothly with this project and I'm super happy with my door snake. I used a scrap of fabric left over from my ill-fitting Gabby Dress as well as a piece of fabric from my successful (yay) Ginger Skirt! I think this is a pretty groovy looking doorsnake!


And here it is insitu in our flat...dust bunnies and all!


I took in a bunch of my fabric scraps to the class and I'm chuffed that someone used my fabric from my (again, ill fitting) Suzy Pants project. How great does this snake look?


Now I'm on the lookout for my next "simple project". Any ideas? What do you do when you totally misplace your Sewjo?

9 comments:

  1. Great "snakes" and this is another project I need to do for winter!

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  2. How about a simple little bag or purse? Or a cushion. You bought fabric the other day at Ikea. go forth and sew.

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  3. My cushion fabric is still sitting in the passengers seat of Bohdana's car so that's on hold for the moment...I'm moving on to the Coco dress....seems simple enough (famous last words).

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  4. It was a fun project and I felt like Queen of the World when it worked out OK. Wind stopper + ego booster!

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  5. Great idea Stephanie - I just came across a free little purse pattern by Cake fabrics - a pretty little pleated clutch - they have bigger versions of the pattern that you can buy for $10 too. http://sewingcake.com/4444-clutch/#tab-1382911557960-6-9.

    It can be totally frustrating to sew wadders! Perhaps it is worth taking some RTW clothes that you love and making up patterns - there are classes on craftsy that look good. Maybe at a Spoolettes get together we could work up some patterns? And I would definitely buy cheap fabric (say like on those rolls outside of Remnant Warehouse or from the Fabric Cave) and try out every pattern (even multiple times) until they are perfect before cutting the real thing - I totally hate wasting "real" fabric purchases too! I spend the largest amount of time measuring and trialling new patterns against myself and existing clothes - it takes a special energy that I don't always have! Don't give up yet :o)… Jo

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  6. If you want something extremely simple....

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvYR2yiPEGk&list=PL42D84C87FB8FC78C&feature=share



    luggage tags!

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  7. I love a good door snake, we call ours Clive and he has mismatched buttons for eyes.

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  8. Oooh, nice idea! I'll need a holiday to go with them though.

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