It’s been a year since my pup Maggie recovered from her surgery to remove a tumour from her shoulder. It was such an exhausting and traumatic time, but she made a full recovery and so far there’s no sign of reoccurrence, and she’s a very happy, healthy and energetic almost-12 year old!

Now that things are better, I want to document my solution for keeping her wound protected from licking and covered to prevent infection without using a plastic cone or bandages. I hope someone will find this post in the future if they need tips for protecting their dog or cat’s shoulder wound after surgery.

Avoiding the ‘Cone of Shame’

When Maggie came home from her surgery, I wasn’t expecting her tiny half-inch lump to have needed such extensive surgery. The biopsy later revealed they only just got it all, with less than a mm of clearance(!), so the surgeon did exactly the right thing.

Her incision was massive, running from her neck all the way down to her elbow. She clearly felt terrible, and she was in so much pain. She was supposed to wear a hard plastic cone around her neck for two whole weeks, but she looked utterly miserable in it and I couldn’t make her do that.

(Trigger warning: Don’t click the following link if the sight of fresh stitches will upset you! Here’s a pic of her when she first came home with her cone.)

Luckily, the inflatable collar I’d bought for my much-missed cat Maui fit her perfectly. These are so much more comfortable for a dog or cat than a hard plastic cone – it’s more like a travel neck pillow than a medical device! The neck size is adjustable, you can customize the amount of inflation for comfort, and the soft cover is removable so you can wash it.

It’s easy to remove so your pet can eat comfortably, and then refasten it around their neck with the velcro strip. I think this is a much more comfortable option for pets, and it provides a built-in comfy pillow for nap time!

Note: An inflatable collar isn’t a perfect replacement for a cone in all cases – as you can see from the above photo, Maggie could still reach her paws and tail while wearing the inflatable collar. If she needed to be stopped from licking those areas, I would have tried a soft cone collar instead.

Custom T-shirt (a dog Hospital Gown!)

Wounds apparently heal better with airflow vs tight bandages, so I was instructed to protect the incision site from infection by putting a t-shirt or something on her. That was a challenge, as she couldn’t move or bend her leg without pulling on her stitches, so I realised I needed a shirt that tied or zipped up the back, so it would be easier to put on.

I’ve made t-shirts for Maggie before, by cutting down my old t-shirts to fit her. (Having a small white dog who loves to walk in all weather means she doesn’t stay white for very long at certain times of year! The t-shirts don’t only look cute: they work really well to protect her forelegs and tummy from getting filthy during mud season.)

Maggie in her anti-mud shirt

So I jumped into gear while my sweet girl was sleeping off her sedatives, and got to work on a new shirt – luckily I knew her measurements from the notes I kept from her old shirts. If you need a similar solution you could save yourself some time by buying a dog t-shirt – or using an old one you already have – as your starting point. I needed to keep myself busy until Maggie woke up, so I made a new shirt from scratch.

To make the shirt easy to remove, I cut it all the way down the middle of the back, and planned to stabilize each side of the cut edge with cotton twill tape. While knit jersey fabric doesn’t fray, a cut edge will curl up, and the non-stretchy twill tape prevents that. I also thought that attaching the ribbons to a strong non-stretchy base would spread the load of the attachment points – I didn’t want the ribbons to rip out of the t-shirt fabric as Maggie got more active.

I measured and cut two pieces of twill tape to match the length of the shirt, and then securely stitched one end of four lengths of ribbon at right angles to each tape, to form the ties. (If your shirt is large enough to overlap at the back once you’ve cut it, you could use snaps or velcro instead, but I like that the ribbons make the shirt a bit more customizable; you can make a looser fit by leaving a gap between the two sides of the shirt when you tie the pairs of ribbons together.)

The final step was to attach one tape-with-ribbons to each cut side of the shirt back. This was a bit tricky, as jersey t-shirt fabric is so stretchy! I arranged the tape so the cut ends of the ribbons were sandwiched between the t-shirt and the tape, and I used lots of pins to hold the layers together so the jersey couldn’t stretch too much while I sewed each side of the twill tape down along the length of the shirt.

Right side (top): t-shirt fabric with two lines of stitching
Wrong side (bottom): twill tape with ribbons stitches to it at intervals

Although the stitching to attach the ribbons to the tape was a bit messy and my stitching lines are a bit wonky, the overall effect from the right side isn’t too bad, as you only see the two lines of stitching from where I attached the tape to the shirt. And I was going for function over form – I don’t think a recovery shirt needs to be beautifully finished! The important thing is that the ties hold securely and the shirt stays in place, and it did just that:

I could slip Maggie’s paws into the sleeves, then lift the sides of the shirt and tie the ribbons together down her back to secure it together, just like a hospital gown! (If it works for people, why not for a dog?!)

It worked really well – I could put the shirt on without causing any pain, and untie the top ribbons to check on the wound without needing to remove the whole thing.

My solution let Maggie relax as she recovered, with a comfortable loose covering protecting her wound. I kept the inflatable collar on her too, but I took it off when I could monitor her closely to make sure she wasn’t trying to lick the wound.

Maggie enjoyed convalescing in the sunshine in her ‘hospital gown’, and snoozing the rest of the day away with her inflatable pillow. When she was allowed to take some gentle walks again, I also made her a little crop top to keep the wound covered while it continued to heal without overheating her with the full t-shirt.

Sassy girl rocking her crop top!

The hardest part of Maggie’s recovery was supervising her full time to make sure she didn’t rip her stitches by running or jumping about too soon! How do you tell a dog they’re not allowed to move for weeks?!

I’m sure the fresh air helped her feel better – as you can see, she was very happy to be outside enjoying the sunshine with me while she recuperated! And I was happy to see that her wound stayed fully covered, no matter how much she rolled around on the grass.

Verdict

Despite the vet tech telling me Maggie would be left with a ‘gnarly scar’, she healed up incredibly well. She has a tiny scar remaining at the top of her leg (you can just see it as a redder spot in the photo below, before her fur fully grew back). She did sometimes get to lick that area by pushing up the t-shirt sleeves when she wasn’t wearing the inflatable collar, and that’s probably my fault for not always supervising her closely enough.

But the most important thing is that her wound healed cleanly, with no infections and no tumour remaining, and we don’t mind a small battle scar to remind us of what a survivor she is! Now she’s as happy and healthy as ever, and enjoying her garden again this summer without any silly clothes to slow her down 😉

Isn’t she a sweetie?

I hope you’ll never need the info from this post, but if your furbaby ever needs to recover from injury or surgery, I hope you’ll find something useful in Maggie’s recovery story.

I’ve been experimenting with various mask sewing patterns since April. With the possibility of a second wave of COVID-19 imminent as schools start up again, I decided to spend part of my Labour Day long weekend making a batch of masks I’ll really enjoy wearing, now I’ve settled on my favourite design.

This is the Contoured 3D Face Mask pattern from the Japanese Sewing Books blog and I love it because the structured shape keeps it away from your nose and mouth (so I find it much easier to breathe), while also fitting closely all around the edges (so it’s more effective) and going right up to my eyes (so it doesn’t steam up my glasses).

I also love it because of the clever design – it’s like fabric origami! There’s only one piece of each fabric (outer and lining), and the shape and structure is all formed from folding and seaming.

image courtesy of Japanese Sewing Books blog

The video instructions are incredibly clear and I’d encourage you to watch it even if you don’t plan to make one of these masks – it’s so satisfying watching it come together! I do wish there were also text instructions with diagrams, but once you’ve made a couple of masks you won’t need the instructions anyway; just the printable template.

Tip: This pattern comes in 6 sizes to cover all head sizes from children to men, which is great, but I think the sizes run a little small. I used the ‘ladies’ size (L), but I’m quite petite and this size is only just large enough for me, so you may well need to size up.

I’ve only made one change to the mask design, and it doesn’t change the sewing instructions at all: I like to use one long tie instead of elastic. I thread a 48″ length of cotton tape onto a yarn needle and pass it down through one side casing and then up through the other. The loop goes around your neck, then you pass the ends above your ears and tie them together at the back of your head to get a secure fit without the discomfort of elastic behind the ears.

My other innovation is in folding the mask so I can keep one in my bag or pocket. Instead of just folding it in half, I tuck the lower third up under the upper third and fold in the sides so it lies flat. Then I fold the resulting rectangle in half and wrap the ties around it to secure it in a compact square shape – it’s so small and convenient!

Until I find something like the gorgeous Japanese Hello Kitty fabric used in the tutorial video, I’m using my favourite sakura fabric to make all my masks. I bought it as a remnant many years ago and the need to make masks has finally given me a reason good enough to use it – and a way to make wearing masks at least somewhat enjoyable.

Isn’t this a great mask design? I highly recommend it. I hope you’ll try making one, or at least enjoy watching the video to see how it works!

Do you have a favourite mask pattern? Please share a link and why you like it in the comments – I’d love to see your recommendations too.

I’m visiting my parents in the UK this week, and I decided to make a quick travel pillow for the flights. I’d looked into buying a travel pillow, but they all seemed far too bulky. All I want is something to support my head as I attempt to sleep on the plane. Here’s what I came up with:

It’s not just cute (hello, kitty!) but it also has a special feature that I came up with myself. Although I may not be the only person to think of this idea, I haven’t seen a pillow like it before, so I should explain how it works.

When you rest your head on it, the pillow creases in the middle to cup your head gently:

And you can also fold it in half to make a wedge shape. Rest the fold on your shoulder against your neck, and you can sleep with your head resting on your shoulder while your neck remains at a fairly comfortable angle:

Here’s how the magic works: the pillow has two compartments, separated by a simple seam down the middle:

(I stitched the central seam first, then stuffed each compartment separately.)

The seam forms a natural fold line in the pillow, without compressing the stuffing when you fold it:

It’s very compact, which makes it easy to pack. Flat, it measures 9 x 6.5″ (23 x 16cm):

And folded in half, it’s only 6.5 x 4.5″ (16 x 11cm):

This pillow is 100% recycled: the washable, removable cover fabric comes from a pair of Hello Kitty lounge pants that developed a hole, the pillow inner is fabric from an old cushion, and the stuffing is leftover from another pillow that was too thick for me, so I removed some of the stuffing. Total cost: $0 (the best price…)

In practice, the incredibly uncomfortable seat on my plane meant I had to use it, flat, as lumbar support behind my back for the majority of the flight – I should have made two of them! But now I know it works as a behind-head pillow, a neck support pillow and a lumbar support pillow, so it’s even more useful. 🙂

When I was writing my new book, I had a lot of project samples to crochet in a short period of time, and that’s pretty hard on the hands.

This is how I crochet (and this is my meerkat amigurumi, not a book project!)

When I’ve been crocheting for a while, the yarn starts to wear a groove in my forefinger as it rubs over it, and, if I keep going, my finger gets red and sore, and my skin condition gets aggravated. A chafed finger really isn’t something you want to see in close-up book tutorial photos, so I needed a solution to protect my finger.

Groovy (and not in a good way) – this is after just a few minutes of fast amigurumi crocheting

First I tried crocheting a finger sleeve, which worked really well for comfort and maintaining tension, but it looked clunky, and after a few minutes of use it began to spin around on my finger and wouldn’t hold in place. I also tried using plastic and metal yarn guides (meant for stranding multiple colours of yarn) which stopped the rubbing, but I found they messed with my tension.

Other suggestions from my ever-helpful Ravelry group members included finger cots, taping the finger, or wrapping paper towel around the finger and then taping over that.

In the end I found a very simple solution that works for me: I sewed a very basic finger sleeve from a smooth, stretchy, spandex-blend fabric. This fabric doesn’t fray, so all I needed was one row of stitching to turn a small rectangle of fabric into a tube that fits tightly over my finger.

It’s not pretty, but it works

When I wear it, my yarn runs smoothly over the fabric and it doesn’t affect my crocheting tension. The tube did stretch a bit after a few days of hard use and became too loose to be effective, but I just stitched another seam slightly further in (thanks to Kris for that suggestion) and it hasn’t stretched further since. The best part is it only takes a tiny scrap of a smooth stretch fabric, and you can customise it to exactly fit whichever part of your finger gets rubbed or irritated by your yarn.

I keep the seam on the outside so it doesn’t dig into my finger, but rotate the sleeve on my finger so the seam doesn’t touch the yarn. Sometimes a simple solution is best: this little tube took mere minutes to make but has already saved me a lot of discomfort as I worked on all my book projects.

I still use my finger sleeve when I have a heavy crocheting session or use yarn that chafes, and I think I’ll whip up another half dozen or so – the biggest problem with finger sleeves is that they seem as prone as yarn needles to being mislaid! If I have a few handy, I’ll be able to keep one in every project bag.

Problem solved!

If you’d like to try making a finger sleeve, look for a smooth fabric with spandex/lycra so it’s nice and stretchy. Or, if you don’t want to spend money when you only need a tiny scrap of fabric, I bet a piece snipped from an old swimsuit would work perfectly…

My starting fabric rectangle was 4cm long by 6cm around (about 1½ by 2⅜”) but I have small fingers, so you may want a longer and/or wider tube. Just measure your finger and remember to add a little extra width for the seam allowance (but not too much, as you need a tight fit so it won’t slip). If it’s too loose, just sew another seam to make the tube slightly narrower, as I did.

Do you have problems with yarn chafing your finger when you crochet or knit? Please share what works for you in the comments!

As always, I was not compensated for this review, and the following is based on my honest opinions!

I’ve known Abby through craft blogging circles for years – you may also know her from her blog, While She Naps – and I’ve been eagerly anticipating this book since the day she first announced she’d be writing it! Abby and I are kindred spirits in the sense that we’re both passionate about the techniques used to create our stuffed animal designs – in my case amigurumi, and in hers sewn toys.

You’ve probably already heard good things about this book (with everything going on here, it’s taken me far longer than I’d anticipated to prepare this review) but I don’t think you could test a book much more thoroughly than I have! And (spoiler alert) I’m so excited to show you the results of my testing process! Read on to see what I’ve been able to make, thanks to Stuffed Animals…

Overview

Stuffed Animals: From Concept to Construction by Abigail Patner Glassenberg is “a comprehensive reference that teaches you how to sew heirloom-quality stuffed animals, from four-legged friends that actually stand to a classic, poseable Teddy bear.”

Stuffed Animals begins with a very useful introductory section, covering tools and materials, design considerations (research, pattern drafting, fabric selection, etc), and how to actually make soft toys (sewing, turning, stuffing, etc). This is a really solid basic instructional section, and, if you’re new to toymaking, I’d recommend that you read these chapters thoroughly before you do anything else.

The remainder of the book takes the form of a pattern followed by 3-4 lessons on techniques that were used/demonstrated in the pattern. The patterns are child-friendly and designed to make toys that will be played with and treasured. My favourites are the cute puppy, the hilarious zipper-mouthed dinosaur, and the classic teddy bear (just to satisfy my curiosity on how these are made).

All the pattern pieces are printed at full-size (except the dinosaur, which is just too big) so you can copy them directly without resizing. But, even better than that, all the pattern pieces are also available to download from Lark Crafts. This is an excellent bonus feature – it’s so much easier to print the relevant pages directly than to try to hold the book open to scan/copy the pattern pages, and, in the PDF version, the pattern pieces aren’t overlapped (they have to be in the book, to save space), so it’s much easier to see what’s going on. Thumbs up to Lark for offering this.

The pattern instructions are detailed, and numbered points guide you through each stage of the toy assembly, together with in-progress photos of all the interim stages. (Although I didn’t try making one of the included patterns, I read through several from start to finish in preparation for my own design, and I used the step-by-step instructions to help me figure out my toy assembly – I just used my own pattern pieces instead of Abby’s – so I can verify that the instructions are clear and easy to follow.)

After you’ve made each pattern, Abby follows with some theory on the techniques used in the pattern that you can use when designing your own toys, and additional related tips. For example, the Elephant pattern also serves as a demonstration of very useful design features: an underbody gusset, setting legs on darts, cutting a slit to insert a detail (ears, in this case), and making eyelids. (I ended up using 3 of these techniques in my design!)

It’s a big book, both in size and number of pages, with lots of content covered (16 patterns and 52 lessons), so there’s plenty of value for money here.

My Experience

I decided to try creating a sewn version of one of my amigurumi designs, and I thought my aardvark would be a good example, with only one colour and a very distinctive shape to replicate. Plus, who’s ever seen a soft toy aardvark?! Mine could be the first ever created!

The inspiration: my amigurumi aardvark design

I have happy memories of sitting on my bed as a teenager, listening to the Friday Rock Show on the radio, and hand-sewing toys from kits. So I’m no newcomer to sewing toys, but how the strangely-shaped pattern pieces combine into a perfect animal shape always remained a magical mystery to me.

Toys I sewed from kits, over 20 years ago(!)

Designing for crochet (where you create the shape in 3D as you go) is nothing like designing for sewing (where you create the shape from multiple 2D fabric pieces) so I knew going in that this would be a huge challenge for me, and an excellent test of Abby’s teaching. You may have noticed that I like to jump in at the deep end in my crafting adventures, and this is no exception…

I read through all the lessons and skimmed all the project instructions to see each technique in action before deciding which would make good starting points for the design I wanted to create. I wrote myself a list so I could refer back to these lessons when I needed them (lessons 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 17, 29, 39 and 50 and the elephant, dinosaur, kangaroo and hippo patterns) and then I was ready to start!

I took some measurements from my crocheted aardvark, and drafted my first pattern, building in all Abby’s advice about underbody gussets and darts so the legs wouldn’t splay. I got some scrap fabric and whipped up my first prototype on the sewing machine:

Hahaha! Oh dear – I’m embarrassed to even show you this. I didn’t have a real grasp of the way to create a fully rounded shape, so my poor aardvark v1 was skinny with a giant humpback. Note, though, that the legs are nice and straight! I went back to the drawing board (and the book) and used the information on sewing a ball to refine my design with an additional top gusset piece, to create my second pattern and prototype:

Definitely better, but still not right. I didn’t bother sewing on the footpads or snout or figuring out the ears at this stage – no point working on details if the main body still looks awful. So I went back for another round of prototyping:

It was starting to look like an aardvark by this stage, although I have no idea what was going on in the chin area! I marked the eye position, and, using Abby’s elephant design for instruction on how to insert the ears, I also used this prototype to test 2 different ear positions, so I could get an idea of the best way to do it. (Don’t look at the legs too closely – I got a little scissor-happy when trimming these seams, so some of them came undone when I turned it! All good learning experiences…)

I could have made another prototype, but by this stage I was running out of time (I have my own book to write, you know!) and had no more scrap fabric, so I decided to be bold and make the next version, with a few final tweaks, in my real fabric, and keep my fingers crossed I’d got it right this time…

I’m what I’d call a straight-line sewist: I can whip up a basic skirt or bag on my sewing machine, but these small pieces, exact lines and tight curves are a little beyond my skill level – just the thought of stitching the tiny circles for the feet and the snout with my machine makes me shiver. To give me the best chance of success, I decided to go back to what I know, and hand-sew the final aardvark. Much, much slower, but very relaxing, and it’s much easier for me to get a smooth finish when I place each stitch individually!

When it came to inserting the safety eyes, I had a big surprise – I thought there was no way my awl (bought on Abby’s recommendation) would create a hole large enough for the shaft of the eye to slip through, but it did! Not snipping the fabric for the eyes was a revelation. This is the kind of expert tip that makes Stuffed Animals such a treasure.

Finally, finally, it was time to turn and stuff my aardvark, and see what I’d created… In my quest for the perfect aardvark, after turning and stuffing, I unstuffed and unturned and tweaked a couple of my seams by less than 1mm to subtly alter a curve here and there – it made a big difference. Then all I had to do was re-turn, re-stuff, and sew up the final seam (I came up with a little tip of my own at this stage to make my ladder stitches perfect – I’ll mention it here, in case it helps anyone else: as my fabric is stretchy, I couldn’t press a seam line as shown in Abby’s examples, so I basted a row of running stitches along each edge as a guide for my ladder stitches.)

Basting lines in burgundy so I could accurately place my ladder stitches

And the end result is:

Fatty Aardvark! I love him so much, and I can’t really explain why.. I don’t think his charm really comes across in the photo: he’s big and soft and unbelievably cuddly. I love how solid and fat he is, but he’s still recognisably a PlanetJune design. And he’s irresistably huggable!

He’s most definitely an aardvark, isn’t he? And look at those perfectly straight legs: not a hint of splay there. If I were going into the soft toy pattern design business (which I’m not – at least for the forseeable future!) I’d probably do one more iteration to tweak the angles on the neck and tail a teeny bit, but Fatty Aardvark is perfect just the way he is.

I’ve learnt so much from this project; I feel like Abby has given me the skills to design lots of animal toys (if only I had the time, and could master my sewing machine so I can actually sew samples on it instead of hand-sewing!)

Ami and Fatty Aardvarks

As shaping is so important to me in my designs, now I’ve seen how much difference 1mm in your sewing line makes to the shape of the finished toy, I think I’m more comfortable sticking with designing crochet patterns; they give you much more precise control over the shape you end up with. Follow my crochet pattern stitch by stitch and you will end up with the same shape as me, even if you’re a beginner. Cut and sew my sewing pattern template and you’d probably end up with a similar, but not identical, shape – by the time you’ve eyeballed a 1/4″ seam to add to the pattern piece and then eyeballed it away again to get back to the stitching lines, it’s highly unlikely you’ll end up with exactly the same shape, even if you’re a master of your sewing machine.

Aardvark evolution, or how I went from embarrassing ignoramus to plush designer in 4 stages – and all thanks to Stuffed Animals!

Peeves

These are all small niggles that I’m including for the sake of completeness. As I’ve used this book as a technique reference, not as a project instructional book, some of my peeves relate to that: if I’d made Abby’s projects before attempting one of my own, I’d have a better grasp of which techniques are illustrated by which project.

• A visual contents page of all the projects in the book would have been very useful; to decide which project would be the closest starting point for each element of my design (e.g. do the closest legs belong to the elephant, or the lion, or the dinosaur, or something else?) I found myself flicking through the book over and over, making lists of every technique I thought might be useful for my design.
• The index is brief and alphabetized not by subject, but by lesson title. I’ll give you a couple of examples of why this is a problem: I wanted to look up Abby’s advice on stretchy fabrics, but Stretch isn’t in the index, and neither is Fabric! The fabric selection advice is actually listed under C in the index, for Choosing Fabric – would you have thought to look there? And then I tried looking up Joints (there are 5 jointing lessons that I can see, spread over 3 projects) but there’s no mention of any of these on the index page. I’d advise you ignore the index and skim through the contents instead – it’s just as easy to find information there, and it’s far more complete.
• Abby is clearly 100% a sewing machine user – there is no mention anywhere of the fact it’s possible to sew toys completely by hand. There is a page on hand stitches, but it only shows how to make various stitches for closing and embellishing, with no mention of which stitch would be best to use for hand-sewing a toy. (I just made one up to sew my aardvark – a faster variant of backstitch – but it would be nice to have some expert advice on that topic.)
• I did spot a couple of minor text errors in my flick-through; the hippo’s underbody pattern piece is labelled ‘upperbody’, the footpads say to cut 2, not 4, and there’s no mention of attaching the hippo’s footpads to the legs. I’ve notified Abby so these can be added to the book’s errata page – unfortunately, errors are a fact of life in printed books, so I always recommend you consult the errata if something confuses you in any craft book.

Final Thoughts

This is a one-of-a-kind book and I think it really fills a gap in the marketplace. I’ve decided that this is really three books in one, and different people will use it in very different ways:

It’s a soft toy pattern book: If you’re looking for a book of toy patterns, this is a varied collection of animal patterns to suit a range of skill levels. If you want to make a toy as a gift, you’ll probably find a design to suit every child. While there’s no difficulty level indicated on the patterns, the complexity increases throughout the book as new techniques are introduced.

It’s a course on soft toy technique and construction: Abby’s background as a teacher really shows through here; this book is structured as a step-by-step course, with each project as a demonstration piece for the lessons in that chapter. If you work through every project in the book, learning the lessons as you go, you’ll have a solid grasp of soft toy design techniques that you could bring to your future projects.

It’s a soft toy design reference book: And then there are people like me, who want the book solely as a reference book and will create our own designs. The included patterns are still useful as demonstrations of the lessons, which, for me, are the real gold. The lack of an alphabetised index is a real blow here – this is the only place where the book falls down for me. Everything I need to know is here, somewhere, but I found I had to flip through the book over and over again to hunt for the gems I needed. But it was always worth it – the content in Stuffed Animals is worth digging for, and my copy has definitely earned its place on my permanent reference shelf.

Overall: highly recommended! (Well done, Abby!)

I won this book through its blog tour, so I decided to review it for you. The following, as always, is based on my honest opinions!

Overview

Mend It Better: Creative Patching, Darning, and Stitching by Kristin M Roach, who you may know from her blog Craft Leftovers, is a combination book consisting of basic mending advice and project tutorials for creative mending.

The tutorials, mostly contributed by other crafters, show a variety of mending options to cover tears, holes and stains by crafting embellishments or making a feature of the damaged area, and upcycling projects to improve badly-fitting clothing or thrift store finds. Kristen also provides a tutorial for making a cute zippered mending kit.

Colourful creative mending projects (e.g. this page is from the Mola Applique Patch tutorial by Carina Envoldsen-Harris)

The bulk of the book is reference material: it includes a lot of excellent mending information: repairing various fabrics; fixing damaged seams and buttonholes; repairing or replacing damaged zips and pockets, and much more. But calling it just a ‘mending book’ doesn’t really do it justice (and I haven’t seen this mentioned in any other reviews) – it also includes instructions for alterations you can make to your clothing: taking in a seam, adding hidden pockets, taking up a hem, adding bead or stitched embellishments, etc.

Detailed information, e.g. how to mend pile (left) and stretch (right) fabrics

The information starts from absolute basics – no prior knowledge of sewing equipment or techniques is assumed. The written instructions and accompanying photos are clear and comprehensive. Although I’m not in love with the narrow 3-column page layout, it’s efficient – there’s lots of information on each page but it doesn’t feel cramped. All project steps are clearly numbered, so it’s easy to follow the instructions.

Mending information starting from the basics

My Experience

I skimmed through the whole book to give me a basic idea of techniques I could use at the moment and then decided to fix a backpack where the fabric had frayed along the seam allowance and left a big hole along the seam. I used my sewing machine and sewed a patch onto the back of the frayed fabric, then unpicked the original seam and re-sewed it to include the patch. I didn’t think to take a ‘before’ picture, but, as you can see, the result is pretty much invisible:

The fabric had frayed along the seam, leaving a big hole between the arrows.

Next I consulted the section on fixing leather. I had assumed my office chair was real leather until it started to wear through and rip, and I could see the sad pleathery truth. Months ago, I tried to mend it with Speed Sew fabric repair glue, but it didn’t hold, and the rip worsened every time I sat down until it reached this sorry situation:

The rest of the chair is fine, though, so I really needed to fix it somehow before the exposed foam started to disintegrate and made the chair unusable.

As my ‘fabric’ is cheap faux leather, I wasn’t sure if the leather-mending instructions would work, so I started with this tiny hole on the other side of the chair front, to test the method. I tried the ‘mending a tear in leather’ instructions but, although the instructions were fine, it quickly became apparent that it wouldn’t work in my case – the pleather tore with any stress on it, so I ended up having to make large whipstitches over the top of the hole to keep it together. Result: a mended hole, but not a pretty one.

Tiny hole, before and after stitching

By this point, I could tell that fixing the giant rip neatly was not an option, so I decided to go for a functionally creative mend, using patching and gluing techniques from the book in addition to trying to sew the hole so it would stay closed.

I cut some black webbing to fit inside the gaps, and then slowly glued a section of the seat cover to the webbing, and stitched the hole closed. The rip was so large that pulling the sides together was extremely difficult, especially as the seat fabric ripped if the stitches were too close to the ripped edge. I found that making large stitches through the fabric and into the webbing was the best bet – the stitches kept the fabric in place against the webbing while the glue dried, and added support for the glue.

It was a long, hard job – stitching through thick webbing with a thin curved upholstery needle is hard work, but a thicker needle would have damaged the pleather even more, so I persevered. And here’s the result:

No, it’s certainly not pretty, but it all holds together: my frankenstitches feel very stable with the glued webbing to back them up, and I think I’ve succeeded in saving the chair – the foam shouldn’t degrade any more now it’s safely hidden away. Now I just need to crochet a seat cover to hide the frankenstitches, and my chair will be as good as new 🙂

I’d ignored these problem for months, but having a book of mending techniques at my disposal makes me feel like I can tackle these things. Next I’m going to try fixing a too-loose zip that keeps falling down!

Peeves

• There’s a lot of information contained in the 200+ pages of this book, and some of the chapter headings are a bit broad and unclear (e.g. the Surface Fixes chapter includes fixes for snags and pulls, how to fix a patch pocket, 2 different project examples of adding new patch pockets, and instructions for re-pleating a skirt, while the Getting Fancy chapter includes lace, leather and stretch fabric repair). A one-sentence summary of each chapter on the Contents page would have been very helpful – I’d never have thought to look in ‘Getting Fancy’ to find the leather repair instructions! – so I definitely recommend consulting the index if you’re looking for something in particular.
• I have a very understated taste in clothing and I can’t imagine using any of the project ideas on my own clothes. They’d definitely be a fun way to extend the life of children’s clothing – which are much more likely to need mending anyway – or if you have a less conservative dress sense than me. Having said that, if I look at the projects as embellishment tutorials instead of mending tutorials, I could adapt them for decorating cushions, bags, etc, so they still have some value to me.

Final Thoughts

Mend It Better: Creative Patching, Darning, and Stitching has plenty of eye candy and project ideas for creative mending, upcycling and embellishing. For me, though, the real value of this book is in the well-explained techniques that will let you fix and mend common problems and make alterations to get more mileage out of your clothing (and also luggage and even upholstered furniture: although the book focuses on clothing, the techniques can obviously apply to any repairs of fabric, zips, buttons etc).

The techniques explained here are absolutely worth the purchase price, even if none of the projects appeal to you, so I recommend Mend It Better as a solid reference for a variety of sewing and mending techniques. I’ll be keeping my copy in my reference library, so I’ll have more confidence in attempting fixes and alterations for my clothes, and I’ll be well prepared next time I have a mending emergency!

I’m so busy these days that I rarely have any time for non-business-related crafting. In fact, I haven’t made anything just for fun since Christmas (and I haven’t yet had a chance to show you that project either!)

We took two much-needed days off at the end of last week, and I finally had a chance to make something just for me. I first saw this idea on Pinterest 40(!) weeks ago and it’s taken me until now to find the time to make it: a little beanbag stand for my BlackBerry so I can prop it up at my desk. It’s a really simple, neat design, and quick to sew.

My pin linked to a finished handmade item for sale on Etsy. Now, copying someone else’s design is one of those grey areas, and as I’ve talked about it before (from the point of view of the designer being copied) I thought I’d address that aspect quickly: this is a one-off stand for my personal use (not for profit), and a quick Etsy search for “iPhone stand” revealed that at least 4 other sellers are making stands made using the same design (so it’s a non-exclusive design).

The shape is very simple and it’s obvious from a glance how to make one: it’s just a pyramid beanbag with a little ledge at the front to support the phone, so I’m comfortable that it was fair for me to make this one for myself. Still, it’s not my design, and I didn’t refine the concept or invent any special techniques to make this, so please don’t ask me for a tutorial or any tips on how I made mine – I’m not going to profit from someone else’s idea!

In South Africa, many craft supplies are difficult (or impossible) to find, so I’m reusing and upcycling wherever I can – I’ll be showing you more of those projects as and when I finish them! I’m hoarding my supply of plastic stuffing pellets for future amigurumi designs, so I didn’t want to use them up on this project. Instead, I went to a thrift store and found this poor sad little toy dog. I could feel that the body was stuffed with plastic pellets, so R3 (less than 50c) later, I had a carefully unpicked seam and a big bowl of plastic pellets. Despite my justifications and my careful toy surgery, I still feel like a soft toy murderer, but I really don’t think anyone would have bought this dog for a child to play with as it’s so stained and dirty, so at least I’ve given it some kind of new use.

It took forever to stuff it pellet by pellet (I only left a small opening, but the larger pellets kept getting stuck in the funnel I’d planned to use for the stuffing…) and I probably should have used a heavier-weight fabric too, but I love the result. I used some of the leftover fabric from my One Yard Wonders designs and it’s so nice to finally get to see the adorable Japanese fabric in use on a project!

It’s a shame the print doesn’t really show when the phone is in the stand, but now the little hedgehogs and squirrels can make me smile every time I pick up the phone and see the print that was hidden beneath it.

I definitely need to make time for more non-work projects. This was so much fun – I’d almost forgotten how much I enjoy just making stuff. Now I feel refreshed and ready for another busy week 🙂

Before our inter-continental move, I pared down my wardrobe by about half, getting rid of anything worn out, badly fitting, or no longer my style. That’s left me with a very minimal wardrobe, and now I really need to replace some of the items I purged.

Shopping catastrophe

I went clothes shopping for the first time last weekend and it was an absolute disaster… Everything is far more expensive here than in Canada. I have a gut feeling about how much I’d be willing to pay for something that’s okay (not bad looking, functional, plain, fits well enough or can be easily modified, a good basic piece) vs something that’s perfect (I love it and know I’ll enjoy wearing for years, great style and/or detailing, the perfect fit) and these prices were far, far higher than my range. There’s no way I’m ever going to be able to justify paying more than my perfect piece price for a merely okay item.

I spent 2 hours browsing and getting more and more despondent. The only thing I even liked enough to consider was a t-shirt in a sale rack, but then I saw the price tag: reduced from $45 equivalent to $30 equivalent! I’ve paid $30 for a t-shirt once, but it’s my favourite top and has loads of detailing (fitted bodice, lace, pleats, gathered neckline) that, for me, justified the price. This was just a plain striped t-shirt… Um, no.

I left the shirt on the rack and gave up on the whole clothes shopping idea. On my way out, I stopped at the craft store and bought some beads, and then I went home to cheer myself up by making something…

Making is fun

(Please excuse my translucently pale skin – being sick for 6 months does takes a toll on a girl’s complexion…)

Two bracelets and a necklace for under $2 – now that’s my kind of shopping! And because I chose all the supplies myself, I could make sure that the necklace is subtle and will go with all my pink and purple tops, and that the bracelets are bolder and will look perfect next to indigo denim. Being crafty is so much more fun than buying mass-produced, over-priced stuff.

When life gives you lemons…

And that gave me the idea to try turning this disappointment into an opportunity: maybe I can make my own clothes in future..? I can take the time that I used to spend wandering malls looking for the elusive piece that has a June-approved style, colour, fit, and price, and use it to learn to stitch garments that I’m guaranteed to like. And so the idea for the Handmade Clothing Project was born.

This will be a huge challenge for me: I’m by no means an expert at sewing, and very inexperienced at making garments from scratch – shortening or modifying existing clothes to fit is more my level at the moment. But I have designed and stitched up bags, a skirt and a t-shirt from scratch in the past, so I think I should be able to do this, if I start with very simple items.

I made this simple skirt in 2008 and it’s still one of my favourites – plus I get the bonus “yay, I made this!” feeling every time I put it on.

Gearing up

I can begin the Handmade Clothing Project with almost no costs: I already have a moderate fabric stash (acquired over the years from remnant bins – I can’t resist a bargain), a wonderful sewing machine, and a small library of books to help me on my way:

• Teach Yourself Visually Sewing (by Debbie Colgrove), a really helpful reference for all the basics of using a sewing machine.
• Encyclopedia of Sewing Machine Techniques (by Nancy Bednar and JoAnn Pugh-Gannon), for more advanced finishing and embellishment techniques (if I ever get to that stage)
• Design-It-Yourself Clothes: Patternmaking Simplified (by Cal Patch), which should help me to draft patterns for clothing that will actually fit me (what a novelty that would be!)

Now all I need is to buy a voltage converter so I can plug my 110V sewing machine into a 240V socket, and I’ll be ready to go! This will obviously be a time-consuming process for me, and I’m still busy trying to get my business back up to speed, so don’t expect new clothing posts every week. But I will share my Handmade Clothing Project successes (and failures) here as they occur – maybe it’ll inspire you to try making clothing too.

Do you make any of your own clothes, or have you ever considered trying it? If so, feel free to join in with the Handmade Clothing Project. (You can still buy clothes too – this isn’t a hardcore “I will never buy clothing again” pledge!) There are no time limits or deadlines, and the only Clothing Project rules are to make stuff you can wear and have fun with it. Crocheting and knitting clothes counts too – you don’t have to sew. Just think how good it’ll feel every time you put on a handmade item – I’m pretty sure you won’t ever get that feeling from anything you bought at the mall…

Who’s with me?