Too small jeans or trousers

It's so annoying to take out your favorite pair of jeans and discover they have been shrinking in the wardrobe 

Don't worry it can be solved. By adding a little bit of fabric in both sides. 

I'll show you how. 

Start by cutting the side seams open as fare as you need to make your jeans fit. 

Try to avoid pesky nails if you can't you need to take them out using pliers. 

I cut to the front pocket. Unpick a little bit of the lining and the side seam. The one you just cut open. 

Find the fabric you want to use. It's better to use something similar to the one in your trousers. I had some denim in my stash in quite similar colours so I went for it. 

Put your opend seam on top of the fabric to measure the kind of piece you need. 

Use a fabric marker or chak to mark the area 

Cut out your pieces you will need two one for each side of your jeans. 

REMEMBER TO CUT WITH SEEM ALLOWANCE. And access to fold back down at the lining. 

Pin your triangles in place where you cut your seam and sew it in place. 

Remember to sew over the original seam as you don't want it to rip. And to fold out the lining so you can sew all the way to the back side of the lining as well. 

It can be a little bit tricky to sew the triangle by machine, but I prefer to use my machine. You can of course use hand stitching if you like to or don't have a sewing machine. 

Now your pices should look like this.

Repeat on the other side. 

Then top stitch the lining and your triangles and make sure you get all the way to the original seams. 

And you should be able to wear your favorite pair of jeans again. 

 

Mine had a couple of extra needs. 

I discovered holes next to the back pockets. I fixed it using a under patch and just darning it with the machine 

Hope you enjoy wearing your favorite pair of jeans again. 

Dorset buttons

                    DORSET BUTTON 

the Dorset button are made using a ring and for example pearl cotton embroidery thread. I often use a thin crochet thread as well. 

You can use different kind of rings wood, metal or plastic. Metal rings must be rust free. Rust free washers works fine. You can even use curtain rings to create larger buttons. 

You need to know Blanket stitch and Back stitch in order to make this button. 

There are a lot of different patterns f

or Dorset buttons but today we are covering the most common one the Dorset Cartwheel Button.

I used a plastic ring this time as I had a few at hand. 

Secure the thread by making a knot, I use to put the tail under the blanket stitches after. 

Blanket stitch around the hole ring 

Make sure you are making the stitches tight together so there is no gap between the stitches. 

Turn the ridge off the blanket stitches into the middle of the ring 

Now it's time to make the spokes wrapp the thread around the ring until you have 8 [my ring is tiny so I used 8 but you can add more if you want to] threads all crossing in the middle. 

Secure the middle cross with a x stitch. [both the top and bottom threads] 

Now you should start weaving around the strands of threads doing back stitch 

Keep going with blanket stitch until you have filled it all the way. Secure ends on the back 

You can use the Dorset button as any other button and they also makes great jewellery 

I made earrings out of mine 

Just created a hoop for the earring piece on the back 

Next time I want to try Yorkshire buttons 

I found a great pdf download over at this Blog

Make your own fabric covered buttons

 Fabric covered buttons are easy to make from scratch.

Materials needed

Fabric [some scrap fabric will work fine] 

Scissors

Sewing thread

Embroidery thread [for the shank]

Batting or stuffing

Piece of plastic container like an ice cream box

Pen 

Beads and various embroidery thread if you want to make it even more special.

When you have gathered your supplies

Start with drawing circles on your plastic container as big as you want the button and cut them out. 

Find the fabric you want to use and cut circles about 2cm larger than the plastic circles. Cut out a circle of batting fitting the plastic circle or use stuffing. If you want to embroidery some thing or add beads now is the best time. I added running stitch using embroidery thread on two buttons and two with colorful fabric. 

Sew running stitch around the edge of the fabric circle. 

Place the batting in the middle of the fabric circle then the plastic circle on top 

Put the batting and the plastic circle into the fabric circle and pull the thread knot or other wise secure ends. 

Now your button should look like this on the front side. 

Cut another fabric circle for the back 

Fold in edges and sew it to cover the back of the button using ladder stitch or wip stitch 

Then it's time to make a shank 

Make a few loops using embroidery thread 

Blanket stitch all around the loop 

Now your button is ready to be used 

Easy Peasy right 👍

How to turn a worn collar

 An old trick if you have a worn shirt or jacket collar is to turn it inside out.

Today I did this with Mr Mayhem's well worn jeans jacket. 

First you need to unpick the seam.

I prefer using a sharp knife but you can use a seam ripper too.

When you are done unpicking you turn the collar an stitch it back in place turning the worn side down.

Mr Mayhem's Jacket is very well worn and I had to darn the worn side before sewing it back onto the jacket. 

Pin it in place, and make sure all layers are in the right place.

Sew it back together and you are done. 

It work just as well with shirts 

This shirt got the collar turned a while back 

Replace jeans button

 It's really frustrating when the button of your jeans fall off. Often the leaves a hole too as they usually are studd buttons.

If you have a pice of denim and a coin or a regular button you can easily fix it. 

Of course you will need a needle and a sewing thread as well 😉

Sew running stitches around the pice of fabric just like the button in the previous posts 

Pull the thread with the coin inside the fabric. My fabric was a bit to small, but I was to lazy to get a bigger one. 

Pull the fabric through the hole, you might need to make it a bit bigger. 

Sew the fabric to the back of the hole 

If you have cut a bigger circle like I should have done you will get a better result on the back. You can always put a patch over it if you aren't happy with how it looks on the back. 

Looks perfect on the front 

The jeans are now back in circulation 👖