Adventures of a Denim Trench: Done!

I took a day off to relax then got back to the finishing touches today.  It took just shy of 3 hours to finish everything! It's beautiful and me! I put the sleeves on, and the buttons.  I washed it and its hanging to dry.  NOTE TO SELF: this is a hand wash only item! washing it in the machine made it fray pretty bad.  I definately need a surger!!! Im very pleased with the outcome and I have enough material left over to make another one.  I think I just might and try to sell it.  Well, here's the finished trench!

 The buttons.....to keep with the mismatch theme I used 5 buttons, 3 of a dark color and 2 of a silver!

This is what happened after I washed it.  It took almost two hours to cut all the fray off but I got it done!  If anyone out there has tips for how to keep this from happening without a surger or burning all the edges I would love to hear them!!!

jolly thanksgiving table

I decided to kill two birds with one stone this year.  I made placemats and a table runner for my kitchen table.  I did dancing fun loving christmas penguins on one side, and a thanksgiving theme on the other.  The placemats are quilted with just regular batting on the inside.  Each one is quilted differently.   The table runner is also quilted.  however, each side is quilted different and the inside is that hot pad batting stuff.  The idea of the table runner is that you can put hot pans on it and it not ruin the table underneath.  I haven't tested this theory out yet, but I'm confident that it will work out.  I decided to do this so that i don't have to fish for pot holders all the time and so that i could just use the same stuff all season! hope you enjoy!

 front and back together

 penguins up close

Halloween Costumes part 1

  I made my very own Patchwork Cloak.  This is my Halloween Costume this year.  Sorry, Pics aren't the best.  This took me a week to sew it all together.  Took me about a month to cut all the squares. I did the dogs costume about a month or two ago.  That one only took me a day to cut and sew.  I still have to make my husbands cape. We are modern day Gleemen.  If you don't know what a Gleeeman is read the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson.  My husband read the series and got the idea.  I made my cloak for under 30 bucks.  You can buy similar coats for any amount....the most expensive I have found was in the $500 range.....I have not found one under $75.  This was made with absolutely no pattern.  I took my measurements....even those were used loosely.  I kept having to add and subtract squares as I was sewing.  For the sleeves I had to add a whole section to each to get  the shape I wanted.  I also used an old sweatshirt to mark the size of the sleeve whole I needed. It was a little big so I took in the shoulders a tiny bit to compensate. It was fairly easy to make.  Once all the squares were sewn together it took maybe 2.5 days to sew it all together.  It was fun and easy.  I lined the whole thing with plain black cotton fabric. I can't wait to finish Lee's and post pictures of all of us in our costumes. 

Sophie in all her glory modeling for the camera!!!