Sewing a Bean
I'm currently sewing a giant bean. With thread, felt, and needles. For the play. It's so much fun and I forgot how much I love to sew. I have no idea how to use a sewing machine, but I can sew by hand just fine. This bean is probably at the limits of what I can sew by hand, though. Any bigger and it would take me days and days to simply sew the seams.
I'm so impressed with how easy this is turning out to be that I may just try sewing a zipper into this thing. I've never worked with a zipper before, but there's one just hanging out in my sewing supplies and it looks like the right size so why not? The worst that can happen is that it gets temperamental and I have to cut it out. No big deal.
This is so much fun that I'm thinking about hand-making the drawstring bags needed in the play as well. That way I can make them out of any material and size I want instead of settling for a bag I find in the 100 yen shop. Someone may just have a good bag laying around their apartment, so I'll wait just a little to see if a decent one will just drop into my lap before I go out and buy fabric. It's kind of hard to resist the impulse, though.
There aren't many props for the play that have to be handmade, which means I can really focus on the few of them to make them perfect. Or as perfect they can possibly be with virtually no budget. So far this is looking great and I haven't spent a single yen. In fact, my goal is not to spend more than 1,000 yen total for all my props. I plan on doing this mostly by begging things off people and establishments. I found the felt in the art room and they let me have the whole spool. And I'm heading down to the butcher's shop in Ochi later this week to ask them for several large pieces of butcher's paper. (Chie doesn't know this yet, but she's coming with me.) First, though, I will experiment with the newspaper that I took off the street on newspaper day.
And work is done! I'm out of here to get back home and settle in with my bean for another long sewing session. It's so wonderful to have a project.
I'm so impressed with how easy this is turning out to be that I may just try sewing a zipper into this thing. I've never worked with a zipper before, but there's one just hanging out in my sewing supplies and it looks like the right size so why not? The worst that can happen is that it gets temperamental and I have to cut it out. No big deal.
This is so much fun that I'm thinking about hand-making the drawstring bags needed in the play as well. That way I can make them out of any material and size I want instead of settling for a bag I find in the 100 yen shop. Someone may just have a good bag laying around their apartment, so I'll wait just a little to see if a decent one will just drop into my lap before I go out and buy fabric. It's kind of hard to resist the impulse, though.
There aren't many props for the play that have to be handmade, which means I can really focus on the few of them to make them perfect. Or as perfect they can possibly be with virtually no budget. So far this is looking great and I haven't spent a single yen. In fact, my goal is not to spend more than 1,000 yen total for all my props. I plan on doing this mostly by begging things off people and establishments. I found the felt in the art room and they let me have the whole spool. And I'm heading down to the butcher's shop in Ochi later this week to ask them for several large pieces of butcher's paper. (Chie doesn't know this yet, but she's coming with me.) First, though, I will experiment with the newspaper that I took off the street on newspaper day.
And work is done! I'm out of here to get back home and settle in with my bean for another long sewing session. It's so wonderful to have a project.