Thursday, May 04, 2017

...W.I.P. Wednesday...on Thursday...of course...

...well...it totally stands to reason that if you have Tuesdays with Julia on Wednesday...then you'll have W.I.P. Wednesday on Thursday...right?...
...way back when we lived in North Dakota...I picked up a grab bag at a Church Basement Sale...

...now...if you're not familiar with Church Basement Sales...the North Dakota variety anyway...they often have a surplus of clothing...and in order to get rid of some of it...they will do grab bags of similarly sized clothing...but you don't get to see what you're buying...so they're really cheap...like in the morning...the grab bags are $3...and by the afternoon...they're $1...

...so I don't really remember what else was in the brown paper grab bag with this rain coat...or even if I kept it...I may have 'donated' right back...

...but I did keep the coat...

...but you can tell from this photo that it's missing a belt...
...it's a neatly made rain coat...
...the lining was intact and it showed little sign of wear...
...it has this neat D-ring closure for the neck...so I thought that I'd try to replicate that for the belt...
...and I have a rather worn pair of khakis that are almost a perfect match for the material...
...I thought about trying to also match the green from the lining for the underside...
...but in the end...I decided against it...and just cut two strips for the belt from each of the legs of the trousers...
...rounded one end a bit...
...stitched it together and turned it right side out...
...and the fabric part of the belt is finished...

...now...on to the D-rings...
...I have actually used this type of plastic jug for many things over the years...
...but this time...I'm going to try to 'laminate' the plastic...into something thicker and harder...to make the D-rings for the belt...so I just cut some pieces out of the jug...
...you see...it already has a circle...which bi-sected will give me two perfect D's...
...so I cut out the circles...
...and cut them in half...
...lined a baking sheet with foil...
...then I gathered 3 thin plastic D-rings together and sort of pinned them together with a little bit of foil...
...and then I just baked them in a moderate oven for just a few minutes...until they melted together...

...and you know what...IT WORKED!!!...I was so pleasantly surprised...
...I just gave them a quick little trim...which really just involved scraping off a few uneven bits...
...so I looped the straight end of the fabric belt over them...and stitched it in place...
...and we were done...time elapsed...maybe 30 minutes...
...I'm pretty pleased with my new belted rain coat...and I really do love making something out of nothing...

...what's in your workbasket this week?

~Have a lovely day!

4 comments:

  1. We all could use a good raincoat with all this weather. Nice Job. MOM

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  2. Awesome. You amaze me with your ingenuity.

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  3. That is so cool! The raincoat looks fab and 'cooking' the plastic - genius!

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  4. that was clever!!! love, k

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