Catching up on life - part 3

It has been a great feeling seeing the backlog of jobs gradually diminish and I really do feel that I'm really getting somewhere with my sewing jobs this year!

But back to the task in hand - my next job was a little more demanding and I did ask our local dry cleaner for her advice.  It is a tunic belonging to DS and the fabric on the sleeves at the sleeve seam had pulled. DH's opinion, when I showed him the damage was 'it's dead'! I hope I'll prove him wrong ;-)

damage from the inside with patch tacked into place

Patch now stitch into place

So, before resorting to removing the sleeves completely, on the dry cleaner's advice, I unpicked the facing on one of the sleeves to use as patches to cover the 'holes'.  But before cutting it up for patches though, I made a pattern out of it so that I'd be able to replace it with some other fabric.  And in the hope that it wouldn't be quite as obviously patched, I unpicked part of the shoulder/sleeve seam so that the patches would become part of the seam (and also hopefully strengthen the area so that the same problem doesn't arise again).  I just hope that DS approves and didn't mind not being able to wear it last summer because I've been so slow.

Hopefully restored to use

Inspired by the success of this task, I'm going to try to repair a couple of table cloths we'd managed to burn holes a couple of Christmases ago and 'canibalise' some matching napkins for the patches.

[photos of repairs]

Now all I need to do is declutter the sewing room (again). I've got some left-over Liberty print fabric that I intend to make into some pretty handkerchieves.

But I'll leave those for another day/post and keep you in suspense!

Chuffed

Tidying the cupboard under the stairs (which is actually the stairs to the cellar) has been on my mind for some time and after a fair bit of research, followed by brainstorming with DF and a trip to good ol' Ikea, I felt that this weekend was finally the time to bite the bullet and try out my DIY skills. So after going over it in my head a few times and a trip to Homebase on Saturday morning, here is the result ...

It is still a work in progress (I ran out of screws!) but I think it is already much neater and Skirtingboard Siw is back in action!!

On a completely different note, here is some more of this weekend's handiwork by Yours Truly.