Sewing Project

Wendy’s recent blog entry about sewing monster dolls for the grandkids made me realize I should tell you about my first and my latest sewing projects.

Back in hippie days it was common for young people to wear bell bottom jeans. At first they were harder to come by and many people had to make their own bells. The standard process was to split the seams of the legs of the jeans from the cuffs to about the knees then sew in triangular pieces of material to make bell bottoms. Commonly, these triangles were paisley or some other outrageous material. My friend Mike Shahan gave me a piece of bright orange velvet. I asked my mother to sew the triangle into one of my pairs of jeans but she refused. So, I got out the manual for her sewing machine, read it, taught myself to sew, and made my pair of bell bottoms. I wore those jeans all over the place. I don’t remember what happened to them, probably I got too fat to wear them anymore. That was my first sewing project.

Jump to the present (30 March 2009). I got an iPod Touch a few days ago. If you have ever priced the accessories for them you know that a case costs an arm and a leg. I just put it into my pocket, but I keep my phone in my pocket too and before long I noticed that they were banging into one another. I have some faux leather that I got for another project. I carefully measured the height and width of the phone and the iPod and sewed a pouch with two compartments. Even though the phone is narrower, its thickness causes it to need the same size opening as the iPod. So I don’t really have to worry about which device goes in which pocket. Here is what it looks like.