FO: envelope cushion cover

I made my first project using the sewing machine yesterday. It’s an envelope cushion cover, following this tutorial. I used Moda Hideaway Folk Art fabric in ‘Sky’ which I bought from Fabric Rehab and a 40 x 40cm cushion insert which I had already. On reflection, I’m not sure I used the right type of fabric for a cushion cover. The Moda is quilting weight cotton – should I have used home decor weight instead?

I did a practice run with an old cotton sheet first to give me some confidence before cutting into my beautiful fabric (that’s what scares me most about sewing – once it’s cut, it can’t be uncut). It turns out that cutting fabric accurately and in a straight line is harder than it looks. I tried using a paper template to cut the fabric pieces on the practice run, but I found it hard to cut the fabric straight around the paper, so I marked directly onto the Moda fabric with a dressmaker’s pencil.

I learned to do a double fold hem and how to use a seam gauge. It’s a sad truth that ironing is an essential part of sewing. I  never iron anything normally. I sewed the hems for the back pieces and then pinned the front and two back pieces together before sewing. I realised when I’d finished sewing around the sides that the front piece was the wrong way around because the right side of the fabric was facing inwards! So I had to acquaint myself with a seam ripper and start again. Once the pieces were sewn together, I tried to neaten the seam edges with zigzag stitch, but I’m not sure if I made it look better or worse…

Anyway, the cushion cover fits and I like it a lot, but it took me ages. I’m going to do another one and I hope that will be quicker. I thought sewing in a straight line would be my main problem, but it turns out I find other things more problematic – cutting fabric properly being one. Also, sewing may be quick, but you need a lot of time beforehand to prepare. However, I’m really looking forward to starting my sewing course, it will be good to pick up some basic skills.  I’m going to need a lot of practice before I attempt to make a skirt.

Getting stitchy

I’ve been getting stitchy over the last few days. I got out my sewing machine manual and I learned what all the bits and bobs on the machine do. I’ve wound some bobbins and I’ve practised threading up my machine. Tilly suggested stitching straight lines to start with, so I got some plain cotton fabric that my mum gave me, drew on parallel lines and stitched away for a while. My lines are little wibbly, but not too bad for a beginner?

But sewing straight lines is not very exciting and sometimes it’s best to get a friend to show you what to do. So I went to a friend’s house last night for a basic sewing lesson. I knew she was a great teacher, as she used to be my A-level English teacher! We became friends after I left school. She’s the best read person I know, as well as being kind, generous and an awesome crafter.

First of all, she showed me how to place your hands on the fabric properly to guide it into the machine. Apparently she could tell from the position of my hands that I am scared of sewing machines! We practised straight stitching, then she showed me how to do a basic seam, zigzag along the edge of a seam to neaten it and top stitch. I was amazed at how much I picked up in a short time and how confident I felt afterwards.

I need to attempt some projects now. I thought of doing an envelope cushion cover or perhaps some bunting to get me started. Can anyone recommend a simple project for a beginner? Thanks.

A rash decision

Last year,  I bought a sewing machine. It was initially meant to be for card making, but I started thinking that I might like to try sewing.  I haven’t done anything with the machine since then. The main reason is that I am scared of sewing machines. There, I’ve said it.

My mum was a crafting tour de force as I was growing up. She knits and crochets. She used to sew clothes and home furnishings.  I wish I’d paid more attention when she was sewing, but her machine (an ancient, secondhand Singer) was noisy and it scared me. This fear was not helped by seeing one of my classmates sew through her finger with a sewing machine in Textiles. Since then, I’ve given sewing a wide berth.

Despite all that, I’ve signed up for a five week beginners sewing class which starts in late February. Am I a masochist? Probably. The class is run by the local adult education centre. It promises to teach me how to do basic stitches and seams, problem solving (?) and how to insert a range of fasteners, including zips.

What prompted this decision? I was looking around the shops for new clothes over the Christmas holidays and I couldn’t find anything I liked. I came to the sad conclusion that the sorts of clothes I want to buy are just not fashionable at the moment. So, being a crafter, the obvious solution seemed to be that I need to make my own. My ambition is to make (at least) one wearable skirt by the end of the year.

However, I cannot overstate how much of a beginner I am. I’m willing to give most crafty things a go, but I’m starting to worry that I’ve bitten off more than I can chew (or sew) this time. I have literally no idea what I am doing, but hey I can drive a car so how hard can it be to operate a sewing machine?

The course stipulates that some previous experience of sewing machines is useful, so I have until 21 February to get some practice. I’ve been reading the excellent ‘Learn to Sew’ series by blogger Tilly and the Buttons on the basics of how a sewing machine works. Once I’ve cleared out my crafting space, I’m going to practice sewing straight lines using some scrap fabric my mum gave me. Wish me luck…

There’s no place like home

Unfortunately I have started 2012 with a horrible cold! Last week my throat was so sore, I could hardly speak or swallow. I spent two days in bed, dosed up on Lemsip. I’m a lot better this week, but I am still snuffly and tired.

It was OH’s birthday last week (and a significant birthday at that). We’d planned a weekend in London to celebrate ages ago and I was worried we wouldn’t be able to go because I was ill, but we managed to get there.

We travelled up on Friday, arriving about lunchtime. We spent the afternoon looking around Selfridges and Liberty (IMHO the best shop in the world). I cooed over Liberty fabrics and haberdashery. In the end, I bought two 1 metre remnants of Liberty tana lawn fabric. I don’t know what I am going to do with them, but they are so pretty. London was still looking festive, with Christmas lights in abundance when it got dark.

The main reason for going to London was to see The Wizard of Oz - I bought tickets as a birthday treat for OH. It was excellent, a really magical production. I was sitting next to a little girl who was wearing ruby slippers of her own (and she insisted her dad took a photo of her feet). I asked if she was enjoying it during the interval and her dad said (somewhat wearily!) that she had seen it before but she loved the show. So cute.

On Saturday we pottered around Covent Garden, had an amazing lunch, then walked to Trafalgar Square. It was such a lovely afternoon, I wanted to take some photos before we came back.

I was so tired out by London, I slept until 2pm yesterday! It is so good to have trips and treats. I find going away makes me appreciate the small comforts of home more. However, strange as this might seem, I am looking forward to getting back into my normal routines for a while.

Happy New Year 2012

Happy New Year! I hope 2012 is good to you. I’m going to start the year with a mosaic of photos from 2011.

2011 was a year of mixed fortunes for me. I did some nice things – OH and I went to Oxford and met the Mooncalves in January and we spent a glorious weekend in Brighton in July. On the crafting front, I learned to crochet (finally), did some card making, took part in the 2nd annual Knitting and Crochet Blog Week, bought a sewing machine and participated in my first craft fair as a seller.

However, 2011 has been a year of illness more than anything else. It has been marked by hospital appointments, blood tests, medications and many, many hours in bed or on the sofa suffering from the side effects from said medications. I feel I’ve lost the person I used to be and the change is not a welcome one. However, it has taught me how resilient (or bloody minded) I can be – I refuse to let this illness beat me. It has also shown me how blessed I am to have the support of my OH, family and friends. I don’t know what 2012 is going to bring me, but I hope with all my heart that I will have better health than I did this year.

Looking back at my resolutions for 2011, I failed to learn colourwork (again), but I did some cross stitch, knitting and photography as well as trying out card making. The mountain of bills and receipts is still waiting to be shredded, but I did get new furniture and declutter my living room. I’m going to make one resolution for 2012 – to look after myself better.

A Christmas garland

I am well and truly in the holiday spirit. I got up late and I have spent the day watching ‘The Muppet Christmas Carol’ whilst knitting on the sofa. It’s the second viewing this year, but it was being shown on Channel 4 and I couldn’t resist. To quote Mr Fozziwig, “it’s Christmas Eve for certain”. I wish you all a very happy Christmas and I hope you have a wonderful time whatever you do.

I’m going to share another Christmas make with you. I watched the Christmas episode of ‘Kirstie’s Handmade Britain’ recently and I decided to make a string of hearts garland for my mantelpiece. In the show, the hearts were made with fabric scraps, but I don’t have a fabric stash (yet) so I bought a Scandinavian themed fabric bundle from Fabric Rehab. I made my garland slightly differently from the one in the show, so here’s what I did.

I made a heart shaped template using white card. I ironed Bondaweb onto the reverse of the fabric. I drew around the template onto the shiny side of the Bondaweb, then cut out two hearts. I placed the two hearts together, wrong sides facing inwards and sewed them together using 3 strands of embroidery floss about 1 cm from the edge. I added a loop of ribbon at the top of the heart and secured it as I was sewing around the edge. I left a gap for stuffing. I ironed the edge of the heart, to fuse the Bondaweb together, again leaving a gap for stuffing. I stuffed the heart using toy filling, then sewed it shut and ironed the edges together. I cut all around the edge of the heart with pinking shears. Finally, I sewed on a silver bell using a couple of small stitches.

Once I’d made enough hearts, I measured a piece of ribbon against the width of my mantelpiece and cut it to size. I knotted the ribbon through the loop of each heart, trying to space them evenly. I’ve attached the garland to the mantelpiece by pinning the ribbon to the wallpaper on each side. Here it is on the fireplace. You can see I favour a minimalist Christmas mantel! The glasses contain tea lights and the wooden bird ornament sits there all year.

This is the first fabric project I’ve made on my own and I’m really pleased with the finished result. It was super easy to make and it’s got me over my fear of cutting into lovely fabric. I’m thinking of making some bunting next to put on the fire place for the rest of the year, as it will look awfully bare when the garland comes down. BTW can anyone recommend any sewing blogs? I think I’ve been bitten by the fabric bug!

The smell of Christmas

I’m loving my new and improved living room since I got my IKEA furniture.  It’s looking even more special with my Christmas decorations up. Coming home at night and turning on the tree lights, then lighting the candles on my mantelpiece makes me so happy.

I wanted the room to smell, as well as look, Christmassy. Last year I bought a Yankee Christmas candle but, alas, it  made me sneeze uncontrollably so I gave it away. This year, I’ve gone for a more natural option – Christmas pot pourri.

I’m not a fan of shop bought pot pourri – I’ve seen some dyed in garish colours with artificial scents which are horrible. However, this natural concoction smells lovely. I bought cloves, nutmeg, star anise, cinnamon sticks and dried oranges. I could have dried my own orange slices, but I was worried I’d end up setting fire to the kitchen.

I have it in a shallow dish on the coffee table in the middle of the living room. The dish is star shaped (it’s actually meant to be a starfish) but stars work for Christmas too! It’s subtle, but I get wafts of orange and clove as I’m sitting on the sofa knitting. You could put the mix in a cloth bag and tie it to a radiator (or hang it near a fire, if you have one) if you wanted to intensify the scent.

To me, it’s the smell of Christmas and it’s glorious.

How I got my mojo back

I posted about a month ago about losing my crafting mojo. Thankfully it seems to have come back The project that got me knitting again was a plain pair of socks for Mr GiW. They’re the same basic pattern I’ve made before – toe up, Turkish cast on, 64 stitch round on 2.5mm needles, gusset heel and 2 x 2 ribbing at the top. I used Regia sock in grey (manly and suitable for work).

Mr GiW took this photo himself, despite being poorly, on a rainy day with hardly any natural light. I made him interrupt our afternoon viewing of David’s Lean’s ‘Oliver Twist’  to model his new socks. He reports they are cosy and he’s very pleased with the stretchy tops (thanks to Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off once again).

I haven’t been doing much really – this wintry weather makes me want to hibernate. I work with a woman who keeps tortoises and they hibernate in a fridge. I thought they went into a straw lined box (as on Blue Peter) but apparently not. Hibernation doesn’t sound as much fun when it’s done in a fridge. Anyway… my semi-hibernation this week has been accompanied by watching The Killing II and listening to Florence and the Machine ‘Ceremonials’.

In which I get festive

Can you believe it’s less than 3 weeks to Christmas? This weekend saw me taking my festive preparations up a gear. I have only one more present to buy. The tree is up – I’ve gone for red and white decorations, which owe more than a nod to the current trend for all things Scandinavian. This year I’ve added some (non-edible, much to Mr GiW’s disappointment) candy canes to my stash of decorations.

Yesterday Mr GiW and I watched The Muppet Christmas Carol. It’s a tradition with us to watch this film on the first weekend in December. We know the script almost off by heart, but we never tire of this sweet version of Dickens’ classic tale

Unfortunately I have not been feeling so well today, thanks to a flare up of my condition. I decided to make something positive out of being immobile rather than moping, so I’ve written my Christmas cards this afternoon. For the rest of the time, I have been knitting a Gap-tastic Cowl [Rav link]. I have no snow, unlike this time last year, but it’s still chilly enough to make a chunky seed stitch cowl seem like a good idea.

Organisation

This weekend Mr GiW and I assembled IKEA flat packs. I know, the excitement! I say ‘we’, but he did most of the work. I handed him things occasionally. He was heroic, managing to assemble the furniture quickly, then helping me move my existing furniture about and re-distribute my books and yarn. I couldn’t have done it without him.

As I am a librarian, you might think that I would have a perfectly organised home. Nope.  Since I’ve been ill this year it has got worse and the flat is a mess. I’m determined to restore order to chaos. If I’m living in a mess, my mind feels cluttered and it oppresses me.

I bought two Billy bookcases (to replace my existing bookcases) plus an 8 cube and a 4 cube Expedit (and baskets) for yarn storage. Yes, my yarn stash is that bad. Pre-Expedit, it was threatening to take over the living room. I don’t have the luxury of a proper craft room; my living room is also my knitting/crocheting/sewing room.

There’s more yarn behind the sofa, too. I know, I know. I was brave enough to tackle the clutter behind the sofa last night. It was so bad, I was expecting to find Stig of the Dump behind there (I suspect that will mean something to those of a certain age only).

Mr GiW took me for my first visit to IKEA a few weeks ago. I’ve never been because until recently there wasn’t one on the south coast. Anyway, I’d been warned about how big IKEA stores are, but I hadn’t anticipated just how enormous IKEA is and how tiring it is to walk around. I spent far too much (more than I expected) but I got some lovely things. In case you were wondering, yes I did buy some obligatory IKEA tea lights, but I needed them!