New cushions

I’m still sewing, largely because I’ve done something to the bottom joint of the first finger on the left hand, which is making it hard to knit (I can use the second finger, but it’s not as easy, so I’m not knitting nearly as much as usual). I’m hoping it’s not RSI, and that I’ve just injured it somehow, but I’m starting to think that it might be :(

But at least with all my new fabric I have plenty to sew! I may have just slipped back into the shop and bought a bit more on Wednesday. Just possibly. Oops.

There’s four more pieces of William Morris, a piece with gorgeous velvet flowers, and a couple of floral pieces. All for £38. There’s over a metre of each, and some have more than that.

But yesterday’s project involved some of the stuff I bought the week before, two similar Morris floral prints, on a linen-y type base fabric.

I’ve had four of these Ikea cushions on my living room sofas for years now, and whilst I still like them, the embroidery was getting a bit tired and snagged, and I thought that a change would be good.

So now they look like this. I also covered a little cushion that was hanging about, with a hole in its cover.

They’re very simple covers, just a long strip of fabric round the length of the cushion. I used wonderweb to hem the folded edges, for ease and so that there were no visible stitching lines, then put buttonholes in one end, sewed them into and envelope, and sewed the buttons on. Nineteen buttonholes and nineteen buttons – it did get a little tedious, but it was worth it!

They’ve brightened the living room up nicely :) Now what can I find to sew today?

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I made a quilt!

It’s done! I was planning to leave it until Sunday (that being the next day there’s no tennis on…) but my spray glue arrived yesterday (very impressive, since I only ordered it on Sunday), and after I’d spent the day looking at it, I couldn’t resist having a play with it last night. I was only going to stick the layers together, but then I just had a go at sewing one line of quilting, then another, and suddenly it was 10 o’clock and I’d done it all.

It would have been easier if the special quilting gloves with rubber fingers to help move the fabric through the machine had arrived as well, but they’re on back order. The glue definitely helped though, and was much easier than trying to pin all the layers together. I did put a few pins round the edges, just to make sure, but I don’t think I really needed them.

I trimmed the edges and threw it on the sofa to see how it looked, and within seconds Mollie had given it her seal of approval.

Before I went to work this morning I did the binding, with proper mitred corners and slanted joins, and I’m very pleased with it.

The back’s a bit rippled, I did think of ironing it flatter, but I actually quite like the effect of it, so I’ve left it. There were a couple of points where the fabric on the back got a tuck in it – one was at the edge, so I fixed it, but the other was in the middle, so that’s still there. I think if I’d spent more time making sure the backing fabric was completely flat on the floor before spraying the glue on it might have been better. Actually ironing it mightn’t have gone amiss either. Hey ho, you live and learn.

I do like the backing fabric, it’s the same as the one I used for the cushions.

And here’s everything together – in all I used two charm packs, half a metre of the two border fabrics, a quarter of a metre of the binding fabric, and about a metre and a half of the backing fabric. All the fabrics are from Moda’s Mill House Inn range.

The quilt’s not perfect, but I’m pleased with it for a first attempt. I don’t think that quilting will ever take the place of knitting in my affections (it’s all a bit tedious, and you can’t watch television whilst you do it) but I did enjoy making it, and I’ll definitely do another at some point. I’d better, I’ve got an awful lot of fabric to get through!

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More sewing

I carried on with my sewing yesterday, and turned the two squares I pieced last week into cushion covers. I quilted the fronts by stitching in the ditch again, but I didn’t use a backing fabric this time, I just sewed the wadding to the fabric. I think I’m regretting this already, I can see problems if I need to wash the cushion covers, I’ll just have to be careful of them!

Here’s a close up of the quilted squares, you can just see the lines of stitches between them. I’m not 100% happy with this method to be honest, it looks as though you’ve tried to hide the stitches but not quite managed it, even when they’re right up to the seam. I’ve got my eye on a darning foot for my machine on ebay at the moment, if I win it I’m going to have a go at free-motion quilting. Or I might just see if Kerri has one of those too…

For the last cushion covers I made, I put a zip along one side, but sod’s law says that that is the side which always ends up on top, so I did a button back for these ones. It was a bit more fiddly, but I do like the way it looks. And I have lots of buttons but no zips, so it was economical too.

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