Sewing Log #1 April 2025

eReader sleeve

I followed this simple sleeve tutorial to create a sleeve for my Kindle Oasis 9.Gen. This was the first project I did after my Bernina Minimatic 707 got back from the repair shop. I used a black and white cat-houndstooth cotton print for the outside, black cotton for the inside and Vlieseline H640 for extra volume. I made this sleeve a few times already, it's quick and simple.

a half-finished sleeve, put around the free arm of a Bernina 707 sewing machine, with the presser foot lowered

Jeans crotch fix

As we all know, pants can rip and they like to rip in the crotch area. Since good jeans are hard to find and repairing is preferable to buying new, I like to fix them at least once. There are different approaches to this, from visible mending, replacing the fabric, to just patching. If you patch them always do it as soon as you notice. Here are the steps I followed, they are similar to this Youtube tutorial for fixing inner thigh jeans:

  • Assess the damage, pick a suitable fabric (like denim for denim), cut it out bigger than you need. Pick a thread color that matches your fabric
  • Place the patch on the inside and fix it with some pins, make sure the damaged area is fully covered
  • Put the pants under your presser foot. Sew around the outlines once. It might be easier to do with the inside or outside of the pants facing up. Make sure that the fabric is lying flat at all times
  • Once you sewed an outline, you can remove the pins
  • With the outside of the pants facing up, sew inside the outline. You want to patch any holes by sewing over it twice or thrice
  • Cut the access fabric that's more than 5-10mm over the outline. Don't cut too close to the seam
    •
    a collage of four pictures showing the outside of the jeans crotch on top and the already sewed inside on the bottom

    Foldable shopping bag

    This one was very quick and simple. I had a foldable shopping bag with a hole in the bottom (would not recommend ignoring / forgetting). I flipped the bag so the inside faces up and did two straight seams, making sure to move further inside. I cut the extra farbic and voilá, as good as new.

    on the left is a pink shopping bag with ripped seams, on the right is the same bag but fixed