The box was a mess.  I couldn’t find anything I wanted, and every time I tried to pick out a needle, or pin, or my beautiful little crane-shaped embroidery scissors, they would be attached to everything else in the box by a multi-colored tangle of thread.  Stressful.  So in the spirit of “tidiness breeds inspiration” I took five minutes and cleaned it up.  Entropy is a physical law, so it is normal that a handsewing box will collect things over time that belong elsewhere:  bobbins for the machine, elastic, bits of ribbon, ends of cloth, and many many spools of thread–all of these have their proper place in the sewing area, but a good mending basket should have just the essentials.  The weirdest thing I found in my cluttered box was this group of five flicker feathers.  Where did they come from? You know it’s time to clean up your basket when pieces of animal start turning up.

The tidy box looks so inviting!  I was actually thrilled when Tom came to me this morning with pants that needed a button. Of course it won’t stay this perfect, but I DO plan to spend a few minutes every month to put it back in good stead.

My sewing basket is a plastic fishing tackle box I got at a yard sale for 25 cents  when I was in college (new with the tags on–no fish-egg slime).  It’s perfect.  It holds an assorment of needles and pins, a few basic thread colors (yes, in our house magenta is a “basic”– and sometimes it’s fun to mend in a contrasting thread color), a tape measure, chalk and a fabric pen for marking, a stash of safety pins, a small collection of buttons (more buttons live in a big button jar by the sewing machine), my good embroidery scissors and fabric shears, snaps and hooks-and-eyes, tape measure, seam ripper, and thimble.

Years ago I was sitting in my great-aunt Irene’s living room in Iowa, both of us with sewing in our laps.  She said, “I don’t know how you sew without a thimble, Lyanda.  If you start, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without one.”  I have tried and tried, but I cannot sew nimbly with a thimble on my finger.  I do, however, use it frequently for pressing needles through thick fabric.

My three favorite things in the box:

1)  The seam ripper.  It’s useful of course, but what I really like is that I’ve had this same little orange plastic seam ripper since my junior high home economics class.  That happens sometimes.

2)  The little crane-shaped embroidery scissors.  They are beautiful and incredibly sharp.  They delight me every time I use them.

3)  My pin cushion.  It was made by my mother when she was a Brownie, and is filled with sawdust that sometimes escapes.

I encourage everyone to make up a little box or jar to keep mending supplies at-the-ready.  You don’t need all the stuff in my box, just a little thread, scissors, pins and needles, all kept in one place–a canning jar or basket or cardboard box.  That’s all it takes to set yourself up for  a lovely, calming,
practical art.  Think of all the things we can save from the out-box with just a little bit of care and thread.

For inspiration and how-to, see my previous Pretty Patching post.  Also Craftzine’s Mending Month recap from a few years back.

Outside Karen Blixen's house near Nairobi.

I wore them almost every single day, exploring Kenya and Tanzania.  When we entered a village where the women were required to wear skirts, I simply tied a kanga around my waist, over the pants.  In the heat of Africa, where a daypack added a layer of heat and sweat to even the shortest walk, I gained a new respect for my pants’ cargo pockets, which until then I’d though of as an unflattering aesthetic adornment.  On short hikes, my pants could hold lunch and water for Claire and me, a notebook, and my big field guide, The Birds of East Africa.

Lake Manyara, Tanzania

After Africa, I still wore my Pranas several times a week, on all my Pacific Northwest adventures, both urban and natural, and then climbing the ruins of Tulum last spring.  So you can imagine my despair when, while hiking in Joshua Tree a couple of weeks ago (in the Pranas, of course), Claire chimed in with, “Hey mama, I can see your undies.”  Sho’nuff.  There was a hole sprouting on my Prana bum that could no longer be ignored.

Getting rid of the pants was not an option, so when we got home I dug through the scrap bag to find a reasonably thick, but also pretty bit of fabric that would serve as a good patch.  I chose a flowered corduroy leftover from a skirt I’d made for Claire last year.  I wanted to do something a little playful, so cut the patch in the shape of a pear.

To make an applique patch:   draw your design on paper in the size and shape you want, outline this with an extra 1/4 inch, then pin to fabric and cut out your patch.  Clip curves, and press the 1/4 inch under.  Don’t be lazy like me–take the extra 30 seconds to baste the patch in place, rather than just pinning it.  For applique, I  usually like to use a blanket stitch, but since this patch would be on my bum, I thought the extra threads from blanket stitch might get caught on things, so just used little slip stitches.  I sewed the patch on with two strands of embroidery floss in a contrasting pink, then embroidered a little leaf and stem.  If we’re going to bother to repair our clothes, why not have little fun with it?

For more inspiration on clothing reclaimation and whimsy, check out the beautiful new book Sew Liberated, by Meg McElwee .  Her emphasis is not on patching per se, but many of her ideas could be applied in the area of clothing repair.

This Christmas, everyone gathered at our house.  In a quiet moment, my mother-in-law asked my Grandmother Lyanda, who is 93 years old, to tell her about her life–an open-ended question that left the elder Lyanda a bit confused.  But finally she said, “I made all their coats.”  They were my mother and her two brothers, my uncles.  And my grandma didn’t make their coats out of wool from the store, but out of adult coats that had worn through at the elbows or elsewhere.  She took them apart, reclaimed the fabric, and made them into something beautiful and new.

Grandma Lyanda Siglin this past Christmas, at age 93.

She sewed my coats, too, when I was little, also made over from adult coats. I remember a soft charcoal wool with covered buttons, a blue silk lining, and a fur collar that could snap on and off.  She made khaki coveralls for my sister and me, out of her sons’ army clothes.  She was a wonderful seamstress.  I wonder how we came to this day, where the first impulse when something is a bit worn is to replace it with something new?

What have you creatively rescued?  Clothes? Furniture? Fabric?  We’d love to hear about it.

Warm face, warm ‘ands, warm feet
Aow, wouldn’t it be loverly?
–Eliza Doolittle

Cloth bags of heated grain are great for warming the bed or soothing sore muscles–much cozier than hot water bottles, and a nicer quality of heat.  I kept seeing them in boutique shops with shocking price tags, and whenever I asked what the bags were filled with, the shop proprietors would say it was a secret.   But one day a few years ago I saw one that had a suspicious little pile of rice in its packaging, and as soon as I got home I whipped up a bag for myself using rice from the pantry, and added a fleece cover while I was about it (no wonder the filling was a secret–who would pay $30 for a little bag of rice?).  I made one for each of us, and for my mom and dad and sister and in-laws and sundry friends.  We don’t know how we survived past winters without them.  At our house we put the warmed bags into the bed a few minutes before we crawl in ourselves. It makes such a huge difference.  These make great simple, handmade gifts, and you probably already have everything you need to stitch a few up.  Here’s what you do:

With a piece of standard copy paper as your pattern, cut two 8 1/2 x 11″ pieces  of cotton (muslin or calico works great).  Using a 1/2″ seam allowance, sew them together on three sides, wrong sides out.

Clip corners, turn, and press.  Fold the top edge in 1/2″ and press.

Add 5 cups of dry rice.  Any kind will work–I just use whatever’s cheapest in the bulk bins at the local coop.

Pin, and stitch 1/4″ from the edge.  You will want to hold the heavy bag up with one hand as you sew.

It’s nice to make the bag a cover–keeps it clean, and fleece feels so good.  Cut one piece of fleece 12 1/2 x 20 inches.  Finish the ends:  turn one of the short ends in 1/4″, and stitch.  Turn the other end under 1″ and stitch close to cut edge.  Topstitch 1/4″ inside of first stitching, if you like (this will be the side that shows on the outside).

With right side in, fold the end with the wider, topstitched hem up 5 3/4″ , and the side with the narrow hem down 4 3/4 “.  The edges will overlap in unequal thirds.

My mother gave me this pin cushion when I was seven. She made it when she was a Brownie, just seven years old herself. Sometimes a little of the sawdust filling comes out, but I love it.

Stitch the sides, clip the corners, and turn right side out. Slip the rice bag inside and you’re done!

Take the cover off to heat the bag in the microwave.  We usually heat ours for between 2 and 2 1/2 minutes–the time will vary according to your own oven.  The first couple of times you heat it, the bag will smell like cooking rice, but this is temporary–if the bag is a gift, you may want to heat it a couple of times before you give it, so your friend won’t be alarmed.  But don’t let the bag get wet before you heat it, or the rice really could cook, and then molder (this has never happened to me, but it could, don’t you think?).

Use the bag to warm the bed, snuggle it while reading on a cold winter’s night, or apply to tense, sore muscles.  Between these bags on our toes, and the hats on our heads, we stay warm at night and, here in temperate Seattle, we’re able to turn the heat off most nights all winter.  Enjoy!

I love the little rubber-stamped labels.

They aren’t fancy.  The turned-in top edges are finished with pinking shears,  and the drawstrings are just bits of yarn.  The fabric is always from some quilter’s scrap pile, and often the bags are made of two or more colors of cloth.  So simple, but so delightful!  I treasure them, and use them for all manner of things.

With these as my inspiration, I’ve been making cloth bags for gift wrap.  If you have a sewing machine set up, then it truly doesn’t take any longer than wrapping a gift with paper, they can be used again and again, and they’re super-darn cute.  It’s fun to wonder what the recipient will do with the bag–wrap someone else’s gift, stow doll clothes, keep freshly-baked bread?

Here are two I made this afternoon for a child’s party we’re attending tomorrow.  Strictly scrap bag affairs.  Any dig through the fabric scraps is a sentimental  journey:  the larger bag is tied with ricrac leftover  from a dress I made for Claire when she was three, and the gingham is from some long-ago kitchen curtain that didn’t turn out as I’d hoped.

Pinked edges are quick and entirely functional for a little project like this.

Drawstring bags make an excellent first machine-sewing project for kids (or adults for that matter!).  If you don’t know how to make a drawstring bag, find directions here.  But remember–if you are in the mood to just whip a few bags together, you don’t even have to turn the top under twice.  These bags are for light use, and pinking the edges works perfectly well.  (Of course, it is nicer to iron the edges under, and only takes one more minute, but we do have options!)

We so often think of sewing as a big production.  We have to “get set up,” plan a project, shop for matching thread, and find other ways to make it into an ordeal that can be put off.   I’m trying to remember that sewing can happen in a a few minutes, with a pile of scraps and bit of white thread.  Enjoy!