Recent Sewing Projects

After a lengthy step back from the sewing machine (partially due to moving and the machine in need of a tune-up/clean-out), I got back into the enjoyment of sewing recently.  Mending has been a big part of this, but I've completed two new never-done-by-me-before projects.

Here you can see that I sewed a letter on a letter jacket for a friend's daughter.  At the request to put it on, I warned her that I'd never done it before and wasn't going to even attempt to remove the lining in order to make sure the stitches didn't show on the inside.  She didn't mind, so off I went.  I was really proud that it turned out so well!

And then I finally tackled something that I had wanted to attempt for a long, long time.  I had seen a tutorial for this about 2 years ago and knew that I wanted to do it.  Naturally, the tutorial for making your own high chair cover worked with a high chair that was different from my own, so I could only use it as a basic guideline.  I set off with the intent to take apart the original high chair cover, but then Paul pointed out that it might be nice to keep the old one as a spare, so I "spared" it (lame pun intended) and traced around the pieces to estimate the sizes of the fabric pieces I would need to create a new one.

The original.  As you can see, the back shows quite a bit of wear.  And, frankly, I was tired of looking at the same pattern for the last 8 years.

I picked a cute polka dot pattern fabric and bought some bias tape to use to finish it off.  Instead of purchasing something to use as a padded backing as the original high chair cover had, I used an old quilted mattress pad that I wasn't using anymore (part of it was ripped and it wasn't waterproof, which is kind of important when it's meant to be on a kids' bed!).  It worked out really well - it's always nice when you realize that you saved something because you were certain that it would be useful someday - and then that day actually came!

You can see the mattress pad backing here.

The backs - I purposely made the back of the new one longer, so it wasn't easy to slip off the way the other one sometimes did.

Overall, I'm pleased with it.  I made some errors but covered them up pretty well, I think.  This was the first time I had ever used bias tape.  Though it is ultimately there to make edging clean and simple, it took me a bit to sew it on nicely - it was kind of hard to make sure I kept all those pieces of fabric inside the tape while I was sewing, and to make sure my stitches went through both sides of the tape fairly evenly.  The other issue I ran into was one that would have been hard for me to have anticipated, since I'm still an experimenter with sewing and an experienced one.  After I put together the front and the back and put it on the high chair, I noticed that it did not have as much "give" as the original cover, so it doesn't lay flat on the high chair.  However, it still fits rather well, and the brief time you'd have a child sitting it isn't going to harm it.  In fact, it might catch falling food better than the original, which often moved around a bit and trapped food under the cover.

Side by side.  The new one definitely stands out, and I like it!

On the chair.

Complete!