Manic Monday or Week to be Precise

What a week I have had!  Honestly, I have been hopping about all over the place and this week has just disappeared yet again.  I would love to borrow Dr Who's tardis now and again to add some extra time dimensions to my life!  Well at least I have been busy in a nice way.


Last Friday my sister whisked me off to Chester to spend the night there in a hotel right in the City Centre.   It was a birthday treat  (yes I know, this birthday has been going on and on).  But we don't get to see each other often, we live miles apart and we both have families, so it was lovely to catch up with each other.  We had a lovely meal in an Italian restaurant and then we had a few drinks in a pub, and then ...... we went DANCING UNTIL 3am.  We found a place where the people were of our own age group and they played 70's and 80's music and we danced our socks off! It was the best night I have had for such a long time.  In fact, we have not been out dancing like that since before we both had children.  It was fab!  But I paid for it the next morning with my creaky joints.

Then at the beginning of last week, a good friend of mine asked if I would make a dress for her 10 year old daughter.  She was having a Jubilee party at school this week (today in fact) and she needed a 60's style dress, as they were all dressing up in clothes from different eras of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.  Of course I couldn't resist the challenge and I really enjoyed doing this and working to a very particular brief,  but it just totally zapped my time - completely!  They didn't want flowery material or a colour block design.  Geometric would be OK.  It had to be a shift dress, with no sleeves and it had to be straight at the sides, no swinging out.  It had to be short (nearly a mini) and it had to have pockets at the front at the top, not the bottom.  Phew....

I can do pattern drafting, but I have only ever done that for adult sizes, never for children.  This was new territory for me.  Anything I had ever made for DD and DS in the past had always been from a shop bought pattern.  Anyway, I went out and chose some material (the material is Sugar Hill by Tanya Whelan) and lining with mum.  Then I drew up a pattern and got to work with the measurements I had taken.  I was so nervous about the first time she saw it and the fitting.  But when she saw it and her face lit up, it really did make my day!  I did have to take it in slightly on both sides - which involved unpicking and re-sewing the sides and hem but there was no further adjustments after that.  And it looked beautiful on her!  I also made a lovely thick headband to go with it.  And mum bought her some pink tights and large white round sunglasses.  I can't wait to see the photograph that mum promised to show me, of how she looked this morning!

And after all the complaining I had done about how awful the weather had been recently, I spent three whole days of this lovely glorious recently hot sunny week of weather inside sewing!  But that's life isn't it!

This weekend I intend to relax with my family and get on with my crochet granny squares (which have been very neglected).

Hopefully we will be able to enjoy the garden that DH has been working so very hard on .......

and join in with the Jubilee celebrations that will be going on.  


And if you are planning to have jubilations yourself this weekend I hope you have a lovely time.


Have fun until next time!


Daisy X

Can't Get Enough of That Funky Stuffing

Ahh, the great British weather it is at it again.  One day it is Summer in Spring, the next it is back to Winter again.  I can't complain too much though,  as we haven't actually had any snow here unlike half of the country, but it has been pretty cold here.

In my last post I mentioned about cushions and stuffing.  So I thought I would post today on the subject as promised.  This has made me think back to when I was a wee nipper in the early 70's (gosh yes, i'm really THAT old!).  Anyway, when I was young, we were encouraged to make things and crafting was a natural pastime.  My favourite TV programmes regularly showed 'how to make' your own things.  'Blue Peter' had a regular spot on the show featuring how to make and design things.  Later, a rival show called Magpie came along, which often featured making things.  There was a programme called 'How' which was quite scientific and especially good for boys as this showed things like how to make your own circuit boards.  And then, my favourite art programme 'Vision on' and the story telling programme called Jackanory.  Now I know that there have been art programmes in recent years, my own children loved Art Attack for example, but they just don't seem to be like our old programmes.  Art Attack usually involved me having to go out to a shop somewhere to find the right PVA glue, paint, felt pens and whatever else was needed for the major project.  In the early 70's, you had to make the glue as well (good old flour and water).

Now if this all seems a little archaic for the younger generations out there, I will back this up further by my primary education or Junior School as it was known then.   We had a Potter's Wheel in our school, the kind that you 'threw' the clay onto and pressed the pedal up and down with your feet.  We made animals and bowls etc.  We had a making class every week   in lesson time where we made stuffed animals, a slipper bag, a draught excluder and all kinds of other things.  It was during these lessons that I learned to use a sewing machine for the very first time!  This was in addition to our art lessons.  I can hear many teachers saying to themselves 'they were the good old days when teaching was fun'  and just imagine, we still learned to read and write, how did that happen?  And a teacher's day was not filled with worrying about statistics, performance and reaching targets .  Then once a week after school you could join a club where we learned to make soap, candles and some of the more sophisticated and time consuming items.  On top of all this, we were encouraged to use and reuse things.  We were encouraged to do patchwork from reused fabric.  The clothes for rag dolls were from recycled sources.  I assume this was to keep the costs down at the time, but what we learned from this was that you can often make things from what is at hand.  Therefore, I was always making things at home, especially clothes for my dolls.  I think that all these things helped to foster a creative spark in me, which is still with me today.  I am happy therefore, to see that many people are recycling and reusing today and not just sending things to the landfill site before they are worn out.


One of the things we did at school was to make our own stuffing.  We would get as many pairs of old tights that we could get our hands on (washed first, of course!) and we would snip them up into 1" pieces with some scissors.  Then we would use these pieces to stuff whatever it was that we were making, eg animal, rag doll etc.  It probably helped that most mums at that time wore 'American Tan' tights.  This was the colour that mums wore before fake tan caught on!  As the name implies, it was a fairly neutral colour and a great concealor.  Now i'm not suggesting for one minute that you could start a business, chopping up tights and stuffing them into things to sell on the internet, as I am sure that there would be a few health and safety issues to do with flammability and whether they had been laundered sufficiently or not.  But if it was something for your own personal use, or for somebody near and dear, why not indeed!  It may be necessary to find some grandmas who still wear American Tan tights though, but even black tights would do (as long as you couldn't see through the outer fabric of the thing you were stuffing.


Anyway, back to cushions.  I mentioned these in my last blog because sometimes I find that I cannot get the right size cushion inner and they are often quite expensive to buy.  If you find that this is the case, the simple answer could be to make your own.  Many craft shops these days are selling stuffing suitable for craft projects.  Before you splash out on calico and stuffing though, it is a good idea to price up the cushion pads (if you can get them) Vs making your own.  Now I have heard of somebody buying a cushion pad which didn't fit or was the wrong shape for the project in question, and taking out the stuffing and reusing it in a homemade cushion pad.  This is a good idea if it is cost effective.  I have found that you can buy some good stuffing on the internet, but you usually have to buy so many bags of it and the postage is quite expensive.  So shop around before you make a decision.  Making your own cushion pads or inners is a really good idea when you want to make a different shape eg a heart shaped cushion, a rectangle or even a bolster.  Sometimes it is even hard to track down circular cushion pads.  So here is what I would do to make my own.

Cut out some strong neutral coloured fabric in the shape and size of your intended cushion pad, remembering to add 1cm-1.5cm all round for seam allowances.  Calico is a good option for the fabric as it is strong and fairly economical to buy.  You need to choose something that won't let the stuffing out and that won't be seen through your outer cushion fabric.


Sew around your cushion pad shape but leave an opening in one side large enough to turn the fabric and to get your hand into for stuffing.

After you have sewn around the seams, trim them back - but not too close to the stitching as you don't want to cut the stitches or for it to fray.  Also, notice how I cut a triangle across the corners, again not too close to the stitches.  This makes it easier to turn the corners and should give a nice point.

Now use your stuffing to fill your cushion.  If you intend to sell your cushion it is a good idea to use a filling that has a BS safety number on it for cleanliness, washability and most importantly for fire safety.

Now put the stuffing into your cushion pad and fill it to make a nice firm cushion, but not too full or it may burst the stitching and will make it difficult to sew up the final gap.

Now take a needle and thread and sew the final opening with a nice strong backstitch.

Voila!  This is how I made the cushion inner for my last project.  Just remember that your outer fabric (cushion cover fabric) needs to have an extra seam allowance of 1cm-1.5cm all around, so that it will fit over the cushion pad.




Have a very Happy Easter.

BITS AND PIECES CUSHION

Well I can't believe that another week has gone by already - so many projects so little time.  Time just seems to be flashing by.  When we were young at home,  mum used to say that when time went quickly it was because the earth was spinning faster.  Now I have children of my own I definitely think that she is onto something!

 Knitted patchwork cushion

I have been asked to run some knitting classes at a local craft shop called Society Rocks and was trying to think of something to inspire a beginners knitting class.  I was thinking about how the two main stitches of knit and purl form the basis of so many different patterns and that there are so many variations and possibilities for experimentation.  Then I thought about how different pieces could be knitted and joined to form a patchwork of fabric.  Of course, when many knitters start their first knitted project  they very often knit a long length of fabric, which eventually may become a scarf, but in my experience this can get a little boring  and the project is very often left abandoned.  So I thought about knitting patches in different colours and stitches, thus enabling the beginner a chance to experiment and make a sort of knitted sampler. 

I thought about how these patches could be used on a small project to begin with and came up with the idea of using them on a cushion.  I know that knitting gauge can be a bit technical for a beginner, but if the same size needles were used for the patches, and the same weight of yarn throughout, with a little bit of estimation, the patches could be fitted together to make a cover to fit the cushion.  I decided to try this for one side of my cushion and used a piece of fabric for the other side.  Of course, two sides of patchwork in knitting could have been used.  The fabric was a fat quarter of Amy Butler fabric that I had in my stash and it went very well with the bits and pieces of Rowan yarns that I had left over from other knitted projects.  These were cashsoft and  a cotton glace yarn.  The cotton glace I used doubled to obtain a similar thickness to the cashsoft and they all have some cotton in them and therefore have a similar feel.  This could also be made using some recycled or vintage fabric on one side and any double knitting yarns on the other.


The patches were made by casting on 20 stitches for the small patches and 40 stitches for the large patch and 60 stitches for the bottom patch.  The long patch of 1 x 1 rib stitch had 30 stitches (an extra 10 stitches needed because rib pulls in slightly).  I made a cushion of 12" x 12" or 30.5cm x 30.5cm.  This same patchwork technique could be used to make larger cushions, a patchwork scarf or blanket and is a great way to use up any leftover yarn.

Knitted patches joined together to make a square.

Patches joined together using mattress stitch.  Also good practice for stitching knitted fabric together!

Don't pull up the stitches too tightly or they won't lie flat!

This is how the back of the work looked when I had joined all the patches together.

A piece of fabric cut out the same size as the cushion front, but 1" or 2.5cm added on one side for a hem turning.

These could be joined together using a neat back stitch by hand, but for speed and because I am lazy, I joined them with a sewing machine.

Turn a hem over on one end and sew it down on the wrong side of the fabric.

Now place the right sides of the knitted patchwork fabric and the other fabric together, pin and then sew around the outside, leaving an opening on the side with the turned hem.  First of all,  I went around the edges with a large  zig-zag stitch to hold the layers together.  You may need to gently push and pull the knitted fabric into shape with the other fabric square.  Then I set the machine to a fairly long stitch length (about 3.5) and sewed around the inside of the zig-zag stitch, again making sure to leave the opening with the hem free.

Turn it out to the right side and poke out the corners.

Sew some large poppers onto the hem of the open side.

Close up of the hand-sewn poppers.

Back view of the cushion.

Voila! a pretty patchwork cushion.

I will talk about stuffing and making your own cushion pads in my next post.