Blue Jean Blues

Good morning, my friends. It's another hazy day today, although it is an improvement over yesterday. We couldn't see much past our own property line yesterday. Last night, we couldn't see the city lights in the valley. This morning, our sun rose red.

At least we can see into the valley this morning, and we're told the wind soon will be clearing at least some of the smoke. Fingers crossed for improvement today.

The kitties have been training for next summer's Olympic Games in Paris. They're planning to try out for the national synchronized sleeping team. They're still hoping to pick up another member since there's a gaping hole in their workout platform.

Yesterday's routine included the paw-over-the-eye move.

Later, they worked on the cheek-against-the-side move. I think Smitty might need to get deeper into this position. (By the way, you can see his weepy eye in this picture. He's feeling better, but still not 100%.)

They're looking for a coach, in case anyone is interested. There are good benefits. All the kitty treats you can eat.

When my morning chores were done, I headed into the sewing room. My first task was to trace the next block for the Joyful Journey quilt. I'm hoping I can finish this off before we leave on our trip...just over two weeks away now.

Here's the picture from the pattern cover.

After that, I turned my attention to repairing a hole in my favorite pair of jeans. Sadie was on hand to assist.

Some of you will no doubt sympathize with me about how difficult it is to find a pair of jeans you really like. You like the fit. You like the cut. You like the style. You like the weight of the denim. And if you’re like me you wear jeans every single day of your life. And then, when they wear out, the manufacturer has made some change that makes the new ones way less than the perfect jeans you had at the start of your jeans journey. And that’s what happened to me recently. 

In an epic tragedy, my favorite jeans developed a hole at the knee. It started as about an inch-long "run" like in a nylon stocking. Eventually, it worked its way into a proper hole.

This has been coming for a while. I've been on the hunt for the same jeans. I bought these at Bi-Mart originally. They're Lee Riders, Relaxed fit. And I don't know how far out into the world Bi-Mart reaches. Is it just a Pacific Northwest thing? If you're not familiar with Bi-Mart, just think of it as a poorer cousin to Wal-Mart, and you'll have the right idea. In other words, it's not exactly Saks Fifth Avenue. You'd think you could find the same thing on the shelf year after year. Oh, but silly you. These are jeans we're talking about. Their time in this world is decided by the manufacturer, and it can never be longer than approximately five minutes. Get 'em while they're hot because five minutes from now, they'll be vintage fashion.

Earlier this week, I'd seen a post about repairing jeans using sashiko. Here's a picture so you can see what I'm talking about.

(image source)

So, I thought about this for a while. I wasn't thrilled with the prospect of trying to do hand stitching through thick denim, but I liked this look. It's one of those "fashion meets function" ideas. Then, I got an idea about making a patch using the fancy stitches on my sewing machine, and that seemed like a viable alternative. 

Mike donated a pair of his old jeans that I could cannibalize for this effort. Just eyeballing the hole and the worn section, I thought my 3-1/2 inch ruler would be a good size for my patch. It covered the most vulnerable wear.

I had in mind to use a variegated thread. This one already had a bobbin wound, and so it was as if the thread were waving its arms wildly and yelling ME, ME, ME! PICK ME! Okay...settle down. (Things can get pretty wild in my sewing room. I blame the cats.)

And then, I went to work. I cut a patch the right size from Mike's old jeans, and then I used some fancy stitching to decorate it. The filled stitches worked best. This was actually my second try. With the first try, I was using a universal 80/12 needle. My thread kept breaking. Having your thread break when you're doing one of these fancy stitches is something of a disaster since it throws off the pattern. After messing with the first one for a while, I switched to a 100/16 needle, and my problems disappeared.

Then I sewed some stabilizer to it, right sides together. I clipped the corners nearly to the stitching line to reduce bulk. Also, I used about an 1/8-inch seam allowance.

Then, I cut a slit in the stablizer.

And then, turned it inside out. I had a little trouble pushing the lower right edge corner out. When I pushed harder with my stylus, it poked right through the stabilizer. Okay, so I left that as it was.

Then, I sewed the patch over the hole using a double-thick blanket stitch. It was hard stitching through that denim, and the stitches could have been a little more even, but it’s good enough. 

Here are my well-worn and much-loved jeans. Ready for the laundry hamper. 

And now, I can go on living, knowing my favorite jeans are in my closet awaiting the return of my legs. I’ll save Mike’s old jeans for the next time I need to denibalize something. "Denibalizing" is like cannibalizing, only with denim. (Yes, I just made up that word.) And let me just say wearing patched jeans makes me feel as if I were a child who grew up in the 60’s. Oh wait…

Okay, so I spent nearly two hours on that whole process. It didn't leave much time for anything else, but I was determined to get a start on the Painted Ladies. And look at all these pretty ribbons I can choose from now!

So, I'm working on this by making one vertical row each time it comes up on my list of WIPs. This row happens to start with a partial. The bottom of the house will be at the top of the row, and the roof will be at the bottom.

If I were going to sew it together to make a complete house, it would look like this.

To complete the whole row, I'll need three more complete houses. Before I stopped yesterday, I'd cut the pieces for the next one.

Dinner was made earlier in the day. We had gazpacho. If you've never heard of gazpacho, know that it is a chilled soup that originated in Spain. It's a vegetarian soup, but I like to add a little protein in the form of shrimp or crab. This is especially good at the end of summer when the tomatoes taste best.

My recipe riffs of one from Chef John. You can find the recipe right here.

Okay, so it's tempting to put this off because of the smoke, but it's my day to hoe weeds in the garden. I expect I'll harvest some vegetables too. It's also time to water the annuals, so my morning will be spent mostly outside. When that's all finished, I'll get back to my sewing. I want to finish up another row for the Painted Ladies, and then I'll get to work on the next tiny house. This one:

Despite what it says on the pattern, this is Tiny House #32. Just four to go after this one.

Okay, so it's time to get going. It's smoky outside, but still on the coolish side. I'll spend some time with my slow-stitching, and then, the vegetables await my attention. I'm still hoping for some tomatoes from the farmers, but time's running out.