Due to being busy at work and too tired to do much once I got home, I’ve had a dry spell of sewing.  I’ve had some homemade patchwork cushions hanging around in my sewing cave that I made years ago, and the cats had been using to sleep on when they  watch me working from home.  They were made from all kinds of fabric reclaimed from old clothes, including jersey fabric that I hadn’t stabilised.  I loved them, but they were misshapen and covered in cat hair, so one day I just decided to get rid of the covers and keep the cushions to reuse them.

The cushions hung around nude for a while, before I decided to deal with them and do some stash busting at the same time.  I had some pink gingham fabric that had been around almost as long as the cushions and I thought it would make a good inner cover to refresh the now floppy, sad-looking, naked cushions.  I had every intention of making newer, more interesting cushion covers that could be removed and washed, but I liked the look of these cushions so much when they were finished that I decided to call them finished.  It made a nice quick make and I hoped it would be the beginning of more sewing.
It felt good to start and finish a project in one day.

Jx

Back in June, I got a really good deal on some stretch corduroy fabric at Minerva Fabrics.  I bought 7 metres, without giving any thought to what I might use it for.  It arrived and I immediately regretted it as I stashed it away – it took up loads of space and I had no idea what I’d do with it.  Well, I needn’t have worried…

The first project was a van curtain, using the brown fabric.  In the summer, we bought a new (to us) van, with the main purpose of transporting our band equipment to gigs.  This second-hand van had been kept very clean in the back, and so we have also been using it for autumn picnics (cheese and pickle sandwiches and a flask of tea, snuggled under a blanket in the back, gazing out over the Yorkshire countryside, after a brisk walk through the fallen leaves).  We also have plans to use it for camping when the weather gets better next summer, so I took one the pieces of fabric I bought to make a hefty, light obscuring curtain to go behind the seats.  It worked perfectly, blocking out the van contents from the outside and creating a homely feel inside.

The second project was a set of three duvet bags using the cream with brown squiggles fabric – not to be confused with duvet covers.  We don’t have a spare room with a bed in, as we use our two spare bedrooms for our hobbies.  We have futons we can use in the music room and sewing room, and a sofa bed in our living room, but the spare bedding is stored in heavy duty garden waste bags on top of the wardrobes in our bedroom.  These bags tend to tear when the bedding is removed and when it’s squeezed back in, and also adds an unpleasant plastic smell.  After our last visitors, Jez was squeezing the freshly washed bedding back into one of the bags and it split completely down one side.  He mused that it would be much easier if we had fabric bags that wouldn’t split – could I make some?  Well, the stretch corduroy was just the fabric for the job.  I made up three circular based bags with draw strings to hold covered duvets, pillows and bottom sheets for each of the beds.  They look much more attractive on top of our wardrobes too.

The third project for this versatile fabric is yet to be made up.  I’ll be using it to create a (debatably) wearable toile for the Ginger Jeans pattern – cream cord with olive green
flowers / leaves and bright yellow squiggles, for those crazy days.

(This is another of my back dated posts – I’m hoping to post in a more timely way in future.)

Do you ever buy fabric because it’s a bargain, when you have no idea what you’ll use it for?

Jx

We recently bought a new sofa to replace the one that my mum gave me when I moved into the house nearly four years ago.  It had lasted well considering it was second-hand, but it was beginning to sag.  The new sofa came without cushions, and being purple (the old sofa was red), the cushions we had wouldn’t match.  More practical uses for my sewing hobby – fantastic!

I had previously made some patch work cushions out of old clothes and fabric remnants, which turned out okay, but looked very home-made.  There was some knit fabric among the pattern and I hadn’t used anything to stabilise it.  This meant there were parts of the cushions that had bagged out in strange ways. The cats didn’t seem to mind and found them comfy enough cushions for the office window sill.

With these latest cushions I decided to use new fabrics and triangular patterns.  I drafted and measured the pieces out, then laid out all of the pieces to figure out the best placement, with some help from my boyfriend.  I had five different patterns.  I decided that I would make the back of the cushions from a single piece of four of the fabrics, and then the fronts would be a patchwork using the four other fabrics not on the back.  That way the four cushions would definitely be a set.

The whole thing went very well, except that they were a bit baggy on the cushions when completed, so I ordered some more cushions and sewed two together for each of the covers.  I decided for simplicity, and to avoid any zips or buttons that might stick out uncomfortably when hugging the cushions, that I would just hand sew to close them up.  It would be easy enough to unpick and re-sew when the covers needed washing.

Jx

Following the success of my amp covers, I decided to make a bathroom book tidy using the same fabric re-claimed from the old canvas wardrobe. I wanted to have a space in my bathroom for loo books and puzzle magazines, but there isn’t enough space for a book shelf or small table to put them on. I’d wondered for a while whether I might be able to make something using the over the door towel holder as a frame. So, I took a few measurements, made a couple of sketches and, after some more straight lines of sewing, I’m very happy with the result.

There is only one tweak I’d like to make, and that’s to have attached the tape which holds the top two corners up on a diagonal. It’s only a minor problem and just me being over-critical, as usual, so I’m going to leave it as it is and progress onto some more interesting (and difficult) projects.

Do you ever find you are completely happy with your projects, or is there always something you’d like to change?

Jx