Floor Cushion

After I hurt my back, I had to change my chair with a more ergonomic one, i had to change my sitting habits and I found myself in need of a floor cushion, to rest my feet on.

It was pure serendipity, that just recently, in Knitted Bliss's blog, I came upon a floor cushion pattern and photo tutorial, posted by Bernina.

Of course, their cushion is quite sophisticated, quilted and very colorful, I needed a practical and sturdy one, to be placed on the floor under my desk. So, I chose to make mine out of old jeans. I have a sack of these, that I have been collecting over the years - long ago, when the children were still small, I decided not to throw away, donate or otherwise dispose of old jeans, but to collect them and harvest the denim textile for various projects.

So, first I cut 16 wedges out of various old jeans and connected them to make the upper and bottom part of the cushion.

Then I cut a 10 cm wide side panel and connected the top and bottom pieces to the side panel, leaving an opening for the filling. However, when I filled the cushion, I found, that it was too big for my liking and I was kind of disheartened. I pushed the project aside and slept on it. In the morning, I decided to get rid of the side panel and make the cushion, using only the top and the bottom parts.

The disassembly was actually quite a slog, as first I had to remove all of the filling, then to rip the seams and on top of it - I had overlocked the seams between the side panel and the flower pieces together and all of that had to be ripped as well :(. When the last overlocking thread was finally removed, I overlocked individually the top and bottom pieces, sewed them together and filled in the cushion. My filling consists entirely from fabric cuttings from all the dozens of sewing projects I've completed lately. Such a filling is definitely much denser and heavier than the special cushion fillings which are store sold, but it works fine in my case, as the cushion I need has to be sturdy and heavy and stay in place.

I'm still thinking about how to approach the problem with cleaning of the cushion. If this floor cushion proves to be really just the thing I need, I might consider installing a long zipper and make the inside filling removable.

Denim Pencil Case

A small project I sewed these last days - a new pencil case. Both of my children are already in university, but my nephew is still in school and I thought he might like a new pencil case for the beginning of the new school year. I used three different color old jeans and the labels from one of the pairs to add some color and interest to the case. The pouch is basically the same as an old one I made for Gaby years ago and I followed the same photo tutorial.

: The case is fairly big and it fits quite a lot of drawing supplies

: The final dimensions are 26 cm x 14 cm x 5 cm

: First I made a rectangle out of five straps of denim 5 x 31 cm and then I cut a second solid color rectangle 18 x 31 cm.

: All four rectangles - the outer denim layer and the inner cotton ranforce layers are lined with fusible.

: As my nephew lives on the Black sea coast, the idea was to have a sea theme - various colors of blue, fish on the jeans label and anchors on the ranforce lining.

: I hope he likes his new pencil case.

Coral Jeans Handbag

For me this summer is the summer of rediscovering sewing. I'm beginning to enjoy the planning, drafting, cutting, basting and finally sewing the pieces of textile to produce an item.
This is my second bag made of old jeans and I'm planning a third one and a small backpack. I'm on a roll :)

I made this bag for Gaby, using her old coral jeans. And I do mean old! - she was 5-6 years old, when she wore these. I tried to find a picture of hers in these jeans but I couldn't. But then we didn't have a digital camera and instead of thousands of pictures per year I only took max a hundred of the most interesting occurrences in our lives, so I've missed the jeans :)
Luckily, it was the fashion of very flared trousers and I had enough material for a bag and I'll probably use the rest of the textile for another project bag for my knitting. Or I might make a mixed color jeans hand bag, we'll see.

Some technical details: I drafted the pieces for the bag myself, it's easy: two rounded rectangles for the body of the bag, two rectangles for the bottom (it's made thick and double for durability), two triangles for the sides and a long rectangle for the handle. All of the jeans parts are reinforced with fusible.

For the decoration of the bag I took the original pockets of the jeans. The only new materials are the metal parts, the zipper, the fusible and the lining.

The bag is lined with ranforce cotton. It has one big pocket.

As a finishing detail I added the small brand label of the jeans. I'm really proud of how this bag turned out :)

Aikido Weapon Bag

Last October Gaby enrolled in an Aikido club and she recently bought her own wooden weapons. I thought it would be fun instead of buying the standard black polyester weapon bag to make her a personalized weapon bag out of two of her old pairs of jeans. I confess - I am extremely proud how this bag came out!

The bag is intended for keeping and carrying three wooden weapons - jo, bokken and tanto:

I used the entire length of the first pair of jeans to make the case, cutting four straight rectangular pieces from the bottom of the legs up to the cutting for the pockets. The case is fully lined with cotton textile with reinforced denim bottom. For the lining I used remains from a piece of fabric for a table cloth I made a few years ago:

The case closes with adjustable cotton string:

The pocket and the pocket flap for the tanto are also lined with cotton. The embroidery comes from the second pair of jeans:

The only new material I bought - the strap. Gaby was insistent that she didn't want it to be adjustable, so I I discarded the metal rings I had bought for a simple strap adjustment system and just sewed the strap to the side pieces. She claims it's more comfortable this way.

The bottom is reinforced with additional layers of denim. I hope to get a few pictures of the bag in action, but until then - just these a few detail pictures I managed to snap before she took the bag and carried it away to the dojo.