Stuff I've done or am working on

Shorts Mk.1

I made shorts as my first sewing project. Shorts are small so figured that even if things go terribly it wouldn't be too big of a waste. Also I haven't really liked any of the shorts I've owned but making my own could fix that.

[sewing tests]

I followed a pattern and shortened the legs quite a bit(adjusted the pattern a bit and then still unsatisfied ended up cutting off sections before sewing the pant hem) not realizing that I could've and should've lowered the waist too since there was plenty of space around the crotch.

Made couple of minor mistakes while sewing, the cloth being stretchy made it kind of hard to prevent it from bunching up occasionally as it's sewn.

[badly sewn bit]

Stitched a bucko to top of the left front pocket using a chain stitch(it does look decent but it kind of makes me worried with how each stitch seems to depend on the surrounding stitches, feels like if one breaks all of them will. But I've never stitched anything before so maybe it's fine.).

[practice bucko on the cutoff section of the pantleg]

At first I didn't really like how low the crotch was and how that hindered my mobility but then I realized that instead of having the waistband where I usually keep it I could just raise it and ended up quite liking how that looked, especially if I tucked in a shirt under the shorts.

[worn low-waisted] [worn high-waisted] [high-waist+shirt tucked in]

What I did like instantly is the size of the pockets, felt like I could safely put stuff in them and not really worry about anything falling out.

Also used the extra cloth from cutting the pattern to fix up an old cloth bag I had to make in elementary school. The bottom of it was starting to come apart and there were couple of holes in it.

Exercise Ball Cover Mk.1

Made a cover for an exercise ball. Exercise balls are fun, you can sit on one and have fun keeping your balance while you use a computer or do whatever and you could do bunch of other fun things but the surface feels yucky so wanted to make cover.

Did it following this (tutorial)[] for the most part.

I made it like this [] instead of like this [].

So sewed two edges in one go instead of each separately but the folded edge being at the "top" would have been more symmetrical and stress the seams less .

I ended up making the elastic band a bit too tight it's bit of a struggle to get it around a 75cm exercise ball. Considering I realized I could use one of these things [image] to tighten it further I really could have been much more generous when measuring it.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to make the handle and considered dealing with the corner bits some other ways but decided to give it a try and kind of lazily just sewed them together without even removing the exercise ball from the cover. Could have connected them more nicely, I don't think it'll feel very nice if I end up pressing against that part but I am quite glad I at least gave it a try since the handle is much more verstaile than I expected, I can use it to swing the exercise ball around, I can use it as a shoulder strap to carry the ball hands-free or if I don't mind looking a bit silly I can even put it around my waist to have the exercise ball behind me ready to be sat on wherever.

[images for all strap uses]

Shorts Mk.2 WIP

This time I'll actually lower the waist and document the creation a bit better.

One issue with Shorts Mk.1 is that when raised as high as possible the seam in the middle of the crotch presses on me in a bothersome manner. So I'm going to try to prevent that by adding a third piece to the front so that instead of one seam in the middle there'll be two to the sides.

Also wanted to thin the legs a bit so folded the edge like so.

So, done cutting the cloth and tested the fit by basting the main pieces together. I might have lowered the waist slightly too much, I did measure that I wanted about 8 cm less but rounded that up to 10 cm. But that's without the waist band and I think I can just make that a bit bigger if it needs to be and being a bit low-waisted isn't too bad either.

The yellow cloth I'm thinking I might use for waist and bottom of each pant but not sure about it.

Oh, seems like I forgot to add seam allowance for the pockets. Or I did add it but after I realised I cut it in the wrong direction I forgot about it and re-cut the pocket without it. Not sure what if anything I should do.

While looking up some stuff for this saw some ads for pants like these:

I wonder how are those done? Is it anything like tying a tail to large pants to make them fit? I remember the tail made a slight v shape if the it was very tight.

Decided to be smart and actually sew the bucko on the pocket first, as nice as embroidering it by hand was using a sewing machine should be much faster. Also going to add one to the backside too I think, reason I put the first one on the front pocket was that I wanted to easily see it myself but it gets easily obscured and while being larger and lower on the pocket might help a bit doing a 2nd one on the butt seems even better.

Tried doing it like this but didn't like it.

Did the body first but it didn't come out as circular as I wanted so rotated things a bit to make the bump be at the top where it looks much more natural.

Wasn't sure how I wanted to do the eyes, tried to figure out a good way to make them look like they're closed but it's really hard to go slow enough with the sewing machine I'm using to make them small enough.

Sewing circles is hard. Eyes are hard to do too. Legs aren't too bad, the way I did them is out from the body with triple stitch(the one that has 3 horizontal lines in the image) and then back to body with straight and out again with triple. Some mistakes happened but that's fine, they add character.

Next I should figure out what I'm going to do with the pockets, I could connect them back to the original pieces and not care about the stretch being in different direction than the rest or I could just use them as is and carefully use as little of them for seam allowance as I can.

Decided to connect them. Did it like you'd do most seams and turned the edges to seamy side and sewed them together there so none of the stitch shows up outside, considered just placing them on top of another.

Doing that did leave a hole and after doing my best to make one seem like it was meant to be there decided to add a loop over it.

Done sewing the pockets to the front pant pieces.

Exercise Ball Cover Mk.2

I'm not really a fan of how the cloth I used in Mk.1 looks so I want to make another one that looks nicer while also trying to correct anything else I don't like about it.

That means:

Fold and entrance on opposite sides.

Nicer and more neatly sewn handle.

Longer elastic band.

Thicker.

Cloth that's easier to get a grip on.

Hmm! I was a bit hesitant about adding any kind of pattern or such to avoid adding unnecessary bumps and imbalance but if instead of embroidery or applique I dye or paint what I want that shouldn't be a concern.

Light Blue Vest

Found this red vest at a textile recycling center.

Absolutely fell in love with it and became determined to make something like it myself. But since I probably won't make it perfectly on the first attempt decided to treat mark 1 as mostly a prototype but one that should still be decent enough to see some use.

Figuring out how exactly it had been made was interesting. There's about 4 meters of bias binding that appears to have been partly stitched by hand making the stitch basically invisible on both side. For Mark 1 not going to do that myself, I'll just use machine and pick good thread color that isn't too noticeable.

Another interesting point is how the pocket is part of the side seam. Also on the inside the breast pocket forms just from the pocket's lining continuing to the edge instead of unnaturally ending before the edge.

For the applique decoration on the back, which in the original was a bit crooked(presumably the reason it ended up being recycled), decided to embroider a sort of snowflake mandala. Decided to aim for a cooler and more wintry overall style with the idea being to have something to use with clothes that don't fit that well with the red vest.

Getting the measurements exactly right feels important so going to pay extra attention to that.

Is there anything that I should do to ensure that the upper chest area can be nicely folded?

Vest Mark 2

Planned differences from first vest:

Red or violet main fabric.

Bias binding made from cloth that feels nice to touch and is smooth.

Drawn patterns/symbols(acrylic crayons coated with ___ and ironed to attach it)

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Bucko bag

Had to think of something to make out of the fabric I weaved using a loom and after some brainstorming and thinking decided on a bucko shaped messenger bag and/or backpack.

Wasn't sure how I'd get the legs to be round in the way I want them to be so after some testing made a prototype of the idea.

It seems to work but might be too floppy so will need to figure out some way to make them firmer. I could just fill the legs but I'd prefer for them to be hollow so I'm thinking I'll try using interfacing meant for leather that my teacher suggested

The lining probably should attach in more places to prevent it from moving around too much but not sure how I want to do that.

Laptop cover/sleeve

The bag I made is nice but a bit too small and doesn't have a place for anything else that I'd like to bring with my laptop so I'm thinking I'll make one that's meant to be kept on even during use(I saw some that wrapped around the inner corners when looking into if I could change the color of my laptop case) and has pockets for stuff like my external SSD and my trackball mouse.

So:

Cloth that covers back of the screen, let's call it the top part.

Stuff that wraps around the bottom part of the laptop so a bottom part.

Pocket in the top part that perfectly fits my SSD behind the screen that lets me keep it connected without worrying about it getting separated when I move the laptop around.

Maybe another pocket on the top part for my powerbank.

Detachable thing to keep my charger and mouse in(no need for their pocket when using the laptop).

Bottom part probably should have some holes for cooling and microphone.

Could some material firmly connected to the bottom potentially work as a heatsink?

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