Sewing | My Home Makes

May 14, 2013
by My Home Makes 9 Comments

Nine Patch Cushion in Recycled Denim

I’ve been sorting through my bin of fabrics and old clothes saved for sewing projects as I wanted to make a cushion cover for a large spare cushion pad I’ve had kicking around.

I found an old denim shirt that was well washed and faded but too worn in places to repair, along with a darker pair of jeans. Both went well with some linen left from a previous project so I cut up enough strips to sew nine simple patchwork squares. I kept the order that I sewed the fabrics the same on all nine squares the same as I wanted a geometric look on the finished cushion.

I am keeping it with the denim heart picture I made, ready for when I have tidied the bedroom out and sorted it as a guest room.

My Denim Heart

April 30, 2013 by My Home Makes | 4 Comments

We have family coming to stay for a couple of months during May and June which has made me view our guest room with a critical eye. I know that before they arrive the temporary plant nursery on the long window sill will have to move into the greenhouse (fingers crossed for some warmer nights soon). The room seems to be the place for all those things transitioning out of the house, the ones that haven’t quite made the charity shop drop off yet and the “should I keep?” items. It is time to spring into action.

While sorting through, I found an old denim shirt and some linen fabric.

I cut a heart from the denim and ironed interfacing onto the linen background and the heart. I then spent a very restful hour embroidering around the edge of the heart and adding some buttons. An old picture frame was rescued and now it is hung on the wall. Maybe the title of this post should be my recycled heart!

I have a bag of shirts and am wondering what other projects I can do that will turn this bedroom into a more welcoming space. Hopefully, in a couple of weeks, I will be able to post the results.

April 26, 2013
by My Home Makes 7 Comments

I’ve sewn a skirt!

The sunshine has come out and I’ve realised that as much as I like Spring and Summer, most of my clothes lean towards colder days. I’ve recently watched the odd episode of the BBC series Sewing Bee where there is a competition running on dressmaking and tailoring skills. It has prompted me to buy a pattern and have a go at sewing a skirt. It is a simple Burda Pattern for a pencil skirt that I will be able to make up in several fabrics to ring the changes.

The pattern came up a little smaller than the sizing (or I am bigger than I thought!) so I made the next size up which is a good fit. The instructions were clear and it was quick to do. It was fun making something for myself as most of my other makes are either for home or I give away. It was also good to start with something easy as the last time I made clothes for myself I was at school… so all these years on my dress making skills are very, very rusty!

Here is a close up of the fabric below:

Ps. You will have to excuse the photos, my camera is broken so this is taken with the iPad which isn’t as crisp.

April 12, 2013
by My Home Makes 4 Comments

Neon Bright Glasses Case

I am old enough to remember the trend for neon back in the 80′s. Now a a little older and hopefully a little wiser, this time round a little neon goes a long way!

I like the current trend enough that I wanted something and I found a pack of fat quarters with some lovely bright colours that I could not resist.

This glasses case is the end result, made in subtle linen and not so subtle pink neon!

I followed a great at tutorial at Sew Fantastic which has easy to follow instructions and photographs.

My companion while I was sewing just snoozed on….

April 9, 2013
by My Home Makes 10 Comments

Owl iPad Cover

When my husband arrived back from a business trip to the USA with an iPad, I wondered what the point of one was as I’d been very happy with our laptop.

It gradually crept up on me what you can do with one, some very useful, some just a waste of time. I like that I can take a picture and write a blog post with such a small portable device and never fail to be amazed at the a amount of information out on the Internet at my finger tips.

In a time when I am considering what possessions and purchases we really need our lives and what we can live without, the iPad is one luxury I am pleased we have.

It needed a case as I am fairly accident prone and wanted something to protect it. Following on from the owl phone cover I made from felt, I came up with this owl iPad cover. It is made from denim with appliqué shapes and lined with the remains of a fat quarter and some wadding. It took a little unpicking and adapting here and there to get something that fitted well. I think as ever, practice makes perfect and my next attempt would be better.

Now my question is, if you saw this at a craft fair and it was at the right price, would you consider buying?

Your reply would be appreciated as I would like to start selling craft items with a longer term view to earn that way. For now, it’s a nice hobby around my current paid employment.

March 28, 2013
by My Home Makes 9 Comments

Felt Owl Phone Cover

I decided it was time to start making some of the ideas I have been merrily pinning away on Pinterest.

This owl phone cover is the result using scraps of felt and a couple of buttons from my button box. I did some very rustic embroidery on the wings before stitching the pieces together with blanket stitch. The cover is lined with felt.

I think if the pattern was scaled up, it would make a good iPad cover too.

One pin down… About 300 to go!

March 26, 2013
by My Home Makes 3 Comments

Vintage Blanket Cushion – No2

A few months ago I bought a blanket from a charity shop and as some of it was stained, I cut it up and dyed the damaged pieces grey. I needed to recover two cushion covers for the living room and grey suited the colour scheme.

I had left the better parts of the blanket their original blue and decided to have another go covering a big square cushion with a mix of blue and grey. I liked the idea of keeping the blanket label and having it show as part of the vintage feel.

It is good to recycle fabrics and I like working with the slightly felted fabric of the washed blanket. I’ll be on the lookout now for more wool blankets when I next visit a charity shop.

March 14, 2013
by My Home Makes 14 Comments

Machine Felted and Embroidered Book Cover

When my friend was thinking about buying an embellishing machine, I lent her mine. She had the chance to play for a week on projects and this is the beautiful thank you present she made for me and I love it… so much so, I haven’t started using it for fear my scrappy handwriting and sketching will spoil it. She is a very clever lady.

She went on to buy a machine but neither of us has used them lately – we each have too many other things on the go!

We have been talking about having Sewing Saturdays for a while now, to sit and sew together, plan projects, eat lunch, compare ideas and I think this could be just the book to use jot down what I’d like to use that time for. I think it will be a lovely way to spend a day, a bit of gossip, a bit of sewing with a good friend.

March 12, 2013
by My Home Makes 2 Comments

Machine embroidered box for bits and bobs

My making is taking a few twists this month, all loosely related to organising my life!

Here is a box I have made for my dressing table. It started because I have not used my embellishing machine for a long time and sat down one evening with some batting, wool and fabric scraps. I had used the box pattern before as a gift for my Mum, which I filled with her favourite chocolate coated brazil nuts. I knew I roughly the size of decorated fabric I would need to make another for me.

One of the fabric scraps was an old scarf with a fine weave which I laid over the batting, with lengths of thick multi-coloured wool sandwiched in-between. As I worked over the layers of fabric with the embellishing machine, I realised a pattern I could never have planned was coming together quickly. All that was needed was some additional rows of machine stitching to decorate and I had a pretty strip of embroidered fabric to work with.

To decorate the top and to fasten, I made some decorative thread using strips of wool that I zigzagged together. I knotted the end and for additional decoration added a bead from an old polymer clay necklace. I stitched one length to the point of each of the four triangles. To neaten where I had stitched, I also sewed a button on each point. Finally for the closure, I used another big bead. It’s just right for those bits and bobs I hang on to… tickets from events, pebbles, coins, origami birds… they all seem to land on my dressing table and while they are a reminder I want to keep, they will stay in the box.

March 7, 2013
by My Home Makes 5 Comments

A Felt Basket Should Keep Things Tidy

I don’t know about you but I always seem to have a bundle of things to take up and downstairs such as glasses, diary, keys, hair brush etc and more often than not, they end up on the bottom stair. I have to confess to the odd curse as I have trodden on a key or hairbrush!

March seems to be my month to focus on organizing and cleaning rather than concentrate on a particular room and I’ve been looking at ways to make life a little simpler.

I borrowed a lovely book from the Library called Simple Sewing with Lola Nova. If you follow the link to the Lola Nova blog, I am sure you will agree it is a lovely looking site with interesting projects and beautiful photography (unlike mine which during the Winter when I have taken shots in the evening has an unintended Instragram look).

There are some great projects in the book and one that caught my eye was the felt basket. Instructions are for two sizes and I am glad I made the larger of the two. I think I will have another go at a fabric basket but scale up next time.

In the picture above you can just see the dotty lining which is pale blue with grey spots. The main fabric was from the last scraps of a recycled blanket that I dyed when I made the napkins. For interest, I embroidered some flowers around the top band before making up. Two velvet ribbon loops were stitched into the seam at the top.

Last night I discovered these loops meant I could hang my gloves, keys, dog walking bits and pieces on the coat rack by the front door, ready for the early morning dog walk before work. I’ll defintely need to make another now…

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