My children are doomed to a life of small butts and lanky frames because genetics. As a result they grow too tall for clothes long before they grow too wide. My daughter never wears jeans because none fit her proportions and instead we go for stretchy pants. She can usually wear these for years before they no longer fit her waist. After the first year we just pretend they were always capri pants. However she eventually wore out the knees of many pairs of these short pants so I decided to convert them all into proper shorts.  These pants make great shorts because the knit fabric doesn't unravel so no need to hem them. After cutting the pants my daughter made the brilliant suggestion of turning the leg remnants into pockets for the shorts. My idea was to make pockets like I did for my athletic pants where the pockets are on the outside of the thighs. After doing that to a couple pair she decided she'd rather have more typical pockets up by the hips. Pockets 1.0 Since these pants ...

Grandparents can be hard to find gifts for. My parents love photo gifts but they only have so much wall and table space for frames and calendars and books. I found an idea HERE  and I thought it would make a perfect grandparent Christmas gift since my parents have the type of tree with all the ornaments accumulated over a lifetime. I already had most of the necessary supplies. I made ornaments in 2019 for my parents and a set in 2020 for my in-laws. First I gathered photos of my parents/in-laws as children and young adults and their parents as youth and young adults. I raided family history websites and solicited other relatives I knew had images. The first set of ornaments I made I used an app on my phone to erase the backgrounds but it was a bit tedious. I learned from the experience and for my in-laws I educated myself on how to do the same thing in Photoshop. I also digitally drew outlines about 1" around each image to make sure each image had enough room for a boarder/seam al...

 I've wanted to make reusable produce bags for a long time. I just find the flimsy plastic ones annoying and I like to find ways of eliminating single use items in my life. We already regularly use reusable grocery bags so it won't be a stretch to grab these bags too. I decided to make my bags out of mosquito netting because it's super cheap and super light. Mosquito netting may not hold up to heavy use, but we typically buy only a week's worth of produce at a time so we're hardly ever buying lots of one thing. I think they will hold up just fine with a few apples or potatoes at a time.  I wanted a strong but light and washable drawstring so I used a very thin ribbon I had as the drawstring and used two types of closure: ribbon with a bead for a toggle and two ribbons that draw from opposite ends. The weight difference is undistinguishable.  The biggest bag came to 0.4 oz when measured with my mail scale. When I did the math, the weight of that bag would add only 2-...

A sewing machine dust cover has been on my to-do list for a while. I used this tutorial to guide me. I used a jelly roll I bought on clearance once upon a time for the exterior and pockets, double sided fusible foam interfacing someone gave me for the "batting", a fat quarter for the sides, and muslin for the inner lining. I added pockets on the side for storing the food pedal because it gets in my way when I'm not using it; it's like 98% of why I wanted to make a cover. I quilted the stripes by stitching in the ditch with clear thread. I didn't bind the seams like in the tutorial. I just serged the inner seams and rolled under and stitched the lower edge.  I might go back later to make an opening for the machine's handle. I didn't do it now because it was late and I just wanted to finish up and go to bed. I'm really happy with it! I tried to make a quick and dirty cover a month or so ago and it turned out pretty crappy. This is a worthy upgrade. Now ...

After my first test pieces this dresser went pretty smoothly and much faster. Part of that was the joinery was simpler, and part of it is I had all the tools and design finished before I started. I based my design on this tutorial then modified it to match my own aesthetic.  We have a Black and Decker Matrix power tool which allows the user to buy different attachments to use it as different tools. We have the circle saw attachment but it's a pretty small blade and not adjustable so it's not great for ripping down big sheets of plywood. We have a table saw but it requires two people to cut a full sheet of plywood because the sheet is so big and our table saw is a small job site saw.  So I bought myself a new 7 1/4 in circle saw from Harbor Freight (my new favorite store 😍) so I could cut down the big sheets by myself with greater ease on the work table. It worked great. I rough cut pieces a little bigger with the circle saw then cut them precisely to size on the table saw....

As the next step toward building myself a dresser, I made myself a nightstand. I've been using a step stool for a nightstand for a while and it was really getting old. This also seemed like a logical step in my learning process. I used skills I learned for the box (mitered corners, dados) and added to it drawer making, drawer slide installation, and leg construction and attachment This took me way too long to finish. I knew what I wanted it to look like, but didn't have all the specific design details decided in advance. It took me a while to figure out what kind of legs to put on it, what wood to use, and how to cut and attach them. It kind of became a "give a mouse a cookie" scenario where I decided I wanted to do one thing, but that necessitated a tool or a jig or a whatever in order to do it so I'd go about procuring/making that first before I could go back and finish the step I originally started with. The good thing is I now have a complete design with all t...

I wear clothes designed for women, so for my whole life I've suffered from Girl Pockets . I decided to finally do something about it. Enter Pocket Extenders. I referenced lots of YouTube videos and tutorials to get an idea of what I wanted then did my own version.  Basically I turned my pants inside out, cut off the bottom of the pocket, inserted a prepared pocket extension from cotton fabric I had on hand, sewed them together, then turned the pants right side out. Pocket fabric tends to fray badly so I took the extra step to serge the seams to clean them up but I found that does add bulk to the junction between the old and new parts of the pockets which creates a visible pocket line when wearing if the pants are fitted. I don't really care about that, I'd rather have the clean hem. In addition to improving my casual pants, I added phone pockets to my athletic pants as well. I had a couple pairs of shorts that had pockets built in and wanted to spread the goodness. Also I d...