A Family History of Embroidery
Nordea's blog piece on Artful Embroidery (September 19) reminded me of my teenage years when my mother, a crewel embroiderer, taught me some simple stitches. We lived in the middle of Long Island, where there was never enough for kids to do.
My mom was a craft person extraordinaire. She made braided rugs, like this, for the rooms in our home by going to rummage sales on the last day when a shopper could fill a bag for $1.
She loaded up on wool jackets and pants, cut the material into strips, sewed the strips together at the ends and folded as she went. She braided the folded strips and then sewed the braids into an oval, like this.
The artistry came in blending the colors that would sit next to each other in the rug.
My mom also made pictures from wool thread, called crewel embroidery. She made mostly simple flower and fruit compositions that went with our New England antique furniture: ladder back chairs and butcher tables and pewter sconces and mugs.
Crewel is a style of free embroidery thousands
of years old, done on linen or cotton and many
stitches allow the sight of the linen through and around the design. These
pieces, like the pillow below, she would frame and hang on the wall above the couch in the living room.
Both my parents were painters,
as were relatives on my mother’s side. One of them lived in a lighthouse and
painted it, as well as other shore scenes. Some painted the farmlands of
Hicksville, Long Island in the early 1900s, which is where they lived, on
potato farms. My father painted landscapes in oil and my mother used all media
for her pieces. She painted well into her 80s, traveling to Italy to live and
paint in Rome for a month.
All my embroidery was done on faded blue jeans.
My masterpiece was a blue jean skirt that I made from a cut up pair
of jeans. I put a few flowers on it, like this:
But I kept working on it over
time. In the end, it had the feel of this piece:
According to my mother, I wore it every day from Memorial to Labor Day.
It had fringe and hanging threads on the bottom. It was not something that
could be purchased at the Smith Haven or Walt Whitman Malls, which is where
everyone shopped. It was probably the most comfortable thing I ever wore, and I
made it.
WinkandFlip
These jeans are pretty great, with the exception, of course, that they are about 2 sizes too small. On the plus side though, they are in great condition, they have the right length inseam for me, they have a button fly (which I love), and they are boot cut, so I won't have to add any additional width at the bottom to account for tapered jeans. They're also FREE, having been in my attic since I got pregnant with my 6 year old.
The first thing to do is to rip out the outseams with a seam ripper. I do this exactly the way your sewing instructor told you NOT to rip out seams. I put the seam ripper between the two sides of denim and cut the threads. Since the jeans have been sewn together with a chain stitch, you should be able to get enough play to just pull and rip without ripping a hole in the denim....and heck, it's quicker.
At this point, measure the outseam of the pants INCLUDING the extra fabric from the unrolled hem, but NOT including the waistband. This will be measurement A.
Additionally, measure the width of the waistband.
Then, try on the pants. Yes, post rip. Now you can get them on. The way I like to do this is by running a belt through the belt loops and tightening it so it hits at my waist.
I need about 4" at the lower hip. For the panel I need to make, I will add 1" for seams and an additional 1" for comfort, for a total of 6" of width. This will be measurement B.
I start off by laying out the patches for my pants to get a good idea of how they will look. I then sew the patches together. Since the patches are cotton, and cotton is lighter weight than denim, I like to also add a lining piece of fabric for the inside of the jeans. This adds weight and also increases the durability of the panels.
For the waistband, I take a piece of fabric the width of the panels and twice the length of the waistband plus 1" for seams. I fold the fabric lengthwise and place the raw edges lined up with the top of the panel going into the side of the pants. If you are using a lining piece, line this piece up also, matching the wrong side of the lining to the wrong side of the panel with the waistband piece on the outside, sandwiching the panel piece. 
Additionally, I like to have a small piece of heavy duty elastic to add to the inside of the waistband. This helps pull in the waist from the comfort inches I added into the pants earlier.
You will need to be careful when sewing around the rivet. Just go slowly and make sure you don't try to actually sew it. It should be off to the side, but in some jeans it is close. 
Repeat with the other side.
