That’s the set…

I managed to make two of the cushions perfect mirror images of each other and the third one (the one on top) is unique. I like the last one that I made the most but altogether I think they make a lovely set for Mum and Dad’s chocolate coloured sofa.

First of Three Cushions for Mum and Dad

With all this time on my hands (yeah right!), Mum and Dad asked me to make them a set of three 43cm square cushions for their sofa. So, last time I was in Wales, Mum, Sarah and I popped into Dunelm Mill and picked up some fabric. This was not a cheap option with the set of covers alone costing Mum £22 but it’s beautiful fabric perfect for the purpose. Having said that, it’s a double layered fabric with all sorts of textures and materials so it wasn’t trivial to sew. At times I was machining 8 layers of fabric in this design.

I’ve made an envelope style cover binding the top and bottom of the rectangle of fabric before stitching the sides. I then attached three poppers using my new KAM snap pliers that I had for my birthday. You can see them on the bottom photo that shows the back of the cushion. Fingers crossed that the other two come out as well because I’m really pleased with this one!

Scilly Crafts

We’ve just returned home from our first family holiday on the Isles of Scilly. It was a wonderful week in a beautiful place. There are examples of craftsmanship and entrepreneurship dotted across the islands with galleries and little stalls with honesty boxes cropping up regularly along roads and footpaths. Unfortunately I only decided to do this blog post late on in the holiday so I can’t share everything we came across but here is a selection from St Marys and Tresco…

The wall of the primary school on Tresco is a very effective mosaic including plenty of shells. The second photograph is of a stall set up just outside the entrance displaying crafts by the children for sale.

Back at the quay there was a shell trail set up. It’s a lovely way to raise money for charity and local organisations. There is a lot of work that has gone into this.

On St Marys, my favourite find was the Carn Friars Farm Shop that featured pyrography gifts, homemade jams and chutneys and the best apple juice I have ever tasted. Delicious!

  

This stall was offering rather older craftmanship…

  

Finally, we stopped off at Kaffeehaus, a German cafe, on our last day for a couple of slices of their legendary apple strudel and we came across these beautiful beaded flowers in vases alongside real flowers. I’ll definitely try to make some of these in the future.

  

Curtains for Jessica’s Room

Time is flying by and Jessica only just fits in her moses basket now so it will soon be time to move her into her own room. We had awful, floor-length, thin, green curtains up in her room, which did absolutely nothing for the room and were certainly not suitable for our funky little girl. This could mean just one thing – project!

So, off we popped to Ikea for some fabric followed by John Lewis for ruffling and fittings. All in, these curtains have cost me £15 to make and I have upcycled the lining from our old duvet cover. Can’t be bad although they are certainly not the most accomplished piece of sewing I’ve ever done – I struggled to find the space to handle that amount of fabric in our flat. As long as you don’t look too closely they will do very nicely. They are my first attempt after all!