*** The official and awesome DIY thread *** - Page 49

Thread is almost always going to be poly since cotton thread kind of sucks....

I think i might RIT my denim jacket black, so it'd come out a shade of dark purple. the bright red is a little too bright for me.

Kinda tempted to paint a perfectly good pair of NIB GATs.

Instead of the multicolor splatter, all white paint might be cool (assuming your gats are white)

Yeah, all white a la the original ones. Mine are off-white.

I had these Kenneth Cole driving mocs for a while, but almost never wore them.  I was convinced the strap made it more constricting so I decided to cut the strap off.  I used a seam ripper to attack the seams, obviously.

 

 

 

 

 

Looks better than before but still not good. Might look better if you dye them like those Euros you see on the Sartorialist or whatever. But the driving mocs they wear were also suede. Maybe try putting black shoe polish on them.

Thanks for the suggestion.  I'll see what I can work up once I get motivated enough to do the other shoe.

did some further crotch repairs on my RRLs while I was visiting my parents for the holidays.

I've upped my drive to find a sewing machine so I don't have to wait until I can borrow my mom's any time I need one. I want a vintage all-metal one (no plastic gears...outside parts and knobs can be plastic I guess)...been looking at a few singers and have an ebay offer in on a Necchi.

I need straight stitch, zig zag, and reverse...and some way to drop or cover the feed dogs. If I were to find a great local deal on a singer 15-91 or 201-2, I could deal with being straight-stitch only for now, but zig zag is important (any other decorative stitches beyond that...not so much). The one thing that I can't find on many vintage models but I would really prefer is a free arm. Since I am mostly doing repairs and modifications, it is helpful to be able to fit into tight spaces. On my mom's Bernina Nova 900, you can slide off a plate to switch between a big platform and a small free arm...and I almost always use it with just the free arm.
Unfortunately it looks like this was not common a long time ago. The Pfaff 360 looks good, but I hear that replacement timing belts are almost impossible to find...and there is a Necchi supernova model with a free arm but they seem quite rare.

Anybody have other suggestions on things I should look at? As I look at newer machines, there are lots more free arms, but the quality really falls down (and I am not willing to pay the premium for a bernina nova even though it seems like exactly the machine I need...I'm looking for a $100 machine, not a $350 machine).

I hand knitted this scarf from 100% alpaca wool.





It's 7.5" wide and 114" long (2.9m.)

I was trying to replicate this dior homme scarf from 2005.



I'm quite happy with how it turned out!

black RIT dye = purple = radness

gotta say that it looks way better than it did when it was that really hot red

I agree. Very happy with how it came out

A lot of great stuff in here recently. 

Mikey the jacket looks a thousand times better and that scarf is incredible.

Really need to teach myself how to knit.

mikey, is this slim fit trucker? Really love color