Obscure Journey

Hacking my pants with a DIY pocket

Publié le 22 Octobre 2017 par Charly Cross

Catégories : #advice, #clothes, #DIY, #hacks, #sewing, #tips, #tricks

While I have many other things to update you guys on, on Friday that just passed I was hit with a wave on inspiration and I thought I could write about the result, and show you the process of getting a similar look, if you'd like to.

Let's start with 2 things:

pockets are useful and sometimes fun
I have at least one clothing item with no pockets

Clearly, something had to be done, especially now that winter is coming. So I decided to hack my clothes by adding pockets to them. I started with some training pants - is this what they're called? - though, this must be one of the more difficult clothing items to start practicing with.

So these are my pants. Aren't they kinda plain and boring?

This is how they turned out!

Not too shabby, if I can say so myself. My partner thinks the result is rather cute and not all that bad for the first ever DIY / hack project. There are a few steps to follow if you want a similar ... look, or result ... however you want to call it.

TOOLS:

clothes that need pockets
fabric to turn into pockets
scissors
thread and needle
pencil and eraser, maybe
paper [for your pattern]

HOW'S DONE, step by step: guaranteed 100% NOT foolproof

Choose a clothing item that could need some pockets - in my case, some HM sweat pants I got on sale, in summer or so.
Search for fabric that would look nice on the chosen clothing item. I used some old sweat pants by Juicy Couture, on baby pink [is this how the color is called?] Those pants were some 8 or 9 years old and were well loved and falling apart, but I still felt bad for just throwing them away and some parts were still in decent condition. hmmm
Make sure the fabric you find matches somewhat in thickness with the garment, and is made the same: woven or knitted. It will look better, than mixing thickness and fabric type.
take the pencil and paper, and draw your hand's outline, to make the pattern for the pocket. Leave some space around the hand because you don't want a very tight pocket. Use your smartphone as well, if you want to make sure it will fit into the future pocket.

Remove your hand, and realize the pocket will be too small and possibly too ugly too for an outer patch pocket. Decide at this point to use a bigger item, like an A5 agenda or notebook, or any other item of that size. Trace its outline on the paper instead of your hand.

You can use a different paper, the back of the one you used already, or the same paper like me. You may choose to erase the first attempt, like I did, or not.

Cut the paper pattern and use it to cut your fabric. While you could use the agenda or notebook to draw directly on the fabric, the paper is lighter, and you can attach it to said material to make sure it stays in place. This is especially helpful when you're not someone with more experience when it comes to sewing or making clothes.

Cutting the fabric should be easy enough if you laid the fabric completely flat. You just need to own good scissors for the purpose. Make sure to cut enough pieces for as many pockets you want to make. I cut 2 pieces but only used one. But I may use the other one in the [near] future.

I had to cut away the seams of the pants, as I used the lower part. I also removed their hem as the fabric there was dirty and too thick. eww

The next step is to find a position for your pocket, on the garment. I recommend putting the garment on and then deciding where the best place would be. I chose it while the pants were off of me, and I didn't realize it would be too low. I did want it to cover 2 small holes that appeared in my pants [eww, no craftsmanship in the HM labor camps/factories and the cheapest yarn possible.]

While you're here, make sure you choose matching yarn as well. I measured it too, since I was about to had sew this patch and I don't need unlimited supply.

You're supposed to start sewing at this point. You are allowed to make some tea or coffee if you didn't have one before. Make sure to sew an upper hem as well - it will look more professional. You should also ensure to fold in in the edges of your pocket patch.

If you also chose pants or another garment that is pretty tight, or don't own a sewing machine [like me], you have to pay attention NOT to sew together the 2 sides of the item. You can avoid this accident by placing an agenda right under the working spot - like I did in the 3rd shot, in the image above.

In case you're wondering, I'm right handed, so I sew towards the left hand, but I placed the pictures in a left-to-right order ... I hope it doesn't confuse you.

When you're finally done, more likely an hour or more later, your pocket should look like in the image below. I think I will go with another sewing session, to give it more strength - I don't trust it much with just one go done by hand.

My partner said she likes it, and I think it's decent enough. I was lucky with the colors too as gray and pink look nice together. The pants are now more interesting, eye catching, and make my life easier when I don't want to carry a lot of stuff.

before and after

I hope you find this little DIY project useful. See you next time!

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Visiting the National Village Museum -part1-

Publié le 8 Octobre 2017 par Charly Cross

Catégories : #adventures, #bucharest, #customs, #shopping, #tourist, #traditions, #traveling

We finally managed to visit this museum and document our visit through pictures. I didn't walk so much in ages! My feet are killing me - I'm writing this right after the visit, at a café where we stopped to get some rest. If I don't get distracted, I'll post the second part of the blog, next week. Why a second part? Please read on to find out!

We reached the museum by foot from the subway station - it's some 2 -3 bus stops away? At the entrance there were at least 4 tourist buses, and this meant the place was rather packed with people. The admission fee is 15 lei for adults, 4 lei for students, 200 or 300 lei if you want a guide [fee depends on the language you need the guide to speak], and there were a few other rates but I can't remember who or what were those for.

Visiting the National Village Museum -part1-

As far as I can tell, this is the main entrance. There is also a gift shop on the right, right across from the ticket booth. I really liked some of the stuff there, though I must say some seemed a bit overpriced. Not that I'm familiar with prices for this kind of products.

Sadly many houses were closed, so we couldn't see them on the inside. Well, A. [my partner] couldn't enter the houses anyways, though she tried - because of a hay allergy she has. There are also a few rules to follow, such as no smoking anywhere in the museum [though it's in the open] and no taking pics inside the houses. I would assume it's because the flash of the camera can ruin the colors of the decors.

Visitors are not allowed inside the house, with very few exceptions. So I entered a couple of houses, but only in the small entrance/hallway of the house, and not inside the proper rooms where the occupants used to live. You can only imagine why: on rainy days bringing in the mud would eventually ruin the floors, while also just stepping inside some of the houses would also cause damage.

I must add that many houses had either a wooden floor either floor made of dried out mud - a building material I noticed in the walls of the houses as well. This was a convenient building material in the 18th century, a place in time most these houses belonged to. I believe this is what kept them so cool and pleasant - there were 27 degrees Celsius [80.6 F?] outside.

If you wanted to go even cheaper, you'd make a half buried house, like the one below. I guess the insulation was better? I do wonder just how cold it was in winter, though? I couldn't go inside, but I must say the entrance looked creepy and claustrophobic.

There were also many vendors selling handmade things: clothes, home decors, jewelry, dolls, and other stuff. Pretty much what you could find in the gift shop, you could also find at this vendors, and then probably some extra. The prices were equally high, but we bought some cookies - but I only have a picture of one of them.

One of the vendors in front of this buried house was selling traditional alcohol, in special looking bottles. He had several shapes and sizes. While there was nothing wrong with opening the bottle up and drink, many were just for decorative purposes. Clearly, not for houses with pets or kids that can knock them over. The bottle below costs about 10 USD.

Speaking of drinks, there was one vendor selling a very strange summer drink. And what I mean by this s that it was refreshing, but very sweet as well. The drink's name is "braga" and it is made of cereals - read more about it here and here. I bought a glass, see below. My partner said her mother used to drink it a lot, and liked it a lot as well. My partner doesn't share the opinion. The drink is good, but like the articles point out, it looks really rustic and must be consumed really fast.

Another vendor was selling copper ware. I will consider buying some pieces for our future home, after we have it. These copper pieces had a different color on the inside than on the outside, so I'm not sure this is how copper items are. In any case they look beautiful, don't you think?

Lastly, I shouldn't forget to mention the last vendor selling beauty products. We received each a sample of a scrub mask. I can't tell if it was good, but we might visit their shop outside the museum to get a product or two.

Like mentioned before, the museum has many types of houses, a couple of churches, wind and water mills. Most houses had fences, gates, and their original annexes. These annexes include old-fashioned ovens for baking the bread, dog houses, tool sheds, houses for the livestock. Now, on with the pictures of some of the houses.

This next yard and house are a unit, i believe. This house was not opened to the public, but it had an overall quiet feeling.

This was pretty much another household. I would assume its former inhabitants were more rich since the house was build on 2 levels and they also had this carriage. On the left of the "garage" there was an enclosed space - a tool storage unit, I believe.

This house was also pretty big, and the rooms were like a train's carriages, as you could easily see in the first picture. This was a rare sight though as most the other houses had separate rooms and no way to go from one into the other.

I believe the caption says it all at this point. People were shorter in the past. The doors and gates are short, but the rooms are plenty tall on the inside.

Judging by the time stamp, this extra construction was on the same land as the house.

the colors on the bed were more vibrant

WOW, What an adventure! Both the visit and writing this - or better said, editing the pictures.

There 's a part 2 coming up soon, with the animals we saw at the museum! And in the park surrounding it. I just hope it will be soon enough. [I hope there aren't too many mistakes and errors in this entry.]

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