71. Zip

I did two things for the first time yesterday. I used a zipper foot on my sewing machine. I replaced the zipper in a sleeping bag. So I suppose it's only really one thing, in two parts. But I spent a long time sewing yesterday.

Mike's aunt's mother-in-law has a robe, an old terrycloth robe, very simple construction, and it is her favorite. No other robes equal this one. They either don't lie flat enough along the neck, or the pockets aren't square pockets. So I was handed a robe and minky dot fabric and asked to make another just like the first. And I did. I hate tissue paper patterns, so I laid out the fabric and the robe folded to specific pieces in order to get the diagonals correct. I made 4 pairs of pajama pants this way already for Christmas, and I don't think I'll use a tissue paper pattern again. Bleah.

So anyway, I made the robe while Jake's uncle Johnny sat in the living room dropping not so subtle reminders of his political bent. I was glad for the task.

I finished it quickly--about two hours including a short break for dinner. I had brought one other project to accomplish this break. The sleeping bag zipper. Fiona and Daisy each have sleeping bags that I found at a resale shop on separate occasions. They are flowered and vintagey looking on the outside and lined with a thin flannel. Fiona's is blue and pink; Daisy's is red and green. I love them. They look like something my grade school friend Nicole would have had at her house for sleepovers. They are not cold weather sleeping bags, but they are cute and lovely. I had one, not with the flowers, but in a wine-red-brown, that was very much like these. And so I like them. I've always been a bit wabi-sabi about things. Things that are old and a bit shabby but still functional? Keep them and love them.

But this blue and pink sleeping bag's zipper was in bad shape. First, it stopped threading well and so I made a stopper with a zigzag stitch. Then the zipper, an old metal one on a stiff fabric tape, began to disintegrate. The teeth fell off in chunks (like my worst dental nightmare). Fiona brought it to me and asked what we could do.

I worked in a fabric store and I knew sleeping bag zippers existed, but I'd never replaced a zipper. I sat down next to Jake's brother Kevin and his wife Liz, playing scrabble on my mother-in-law's new Nook tablet. The couch is such that you kind of sink towards the middle. Anyway, I clung to the side of the couch, half-watched Thor that was playing on the TV, and ripped out the old zipper.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

I have this old zipper foot in my sewing box. I think it is probably from my grandmother. I gave it a try. I broke three needles in the process but the third one stayed intact and it worked. It did. I got the zipper sewed on and then rebound it with the original matching bias binding. The zipper is black, where the original was white and metal, but it works. It zips so nicely.

So now all the projects are completed and it's time to think about next year. Because as God is my witness, I swear on the grave of my scary great-great-great grandmother Jenny, may she haunt me persistently if I fail to fulfill my promise, that I will start Christmas sewing in February this year.