Crafts on Sea

sewing

The Make It Room Chelmsford Review

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makeitroom So, having declared last week that, inspired by the Great British Sewing Bee, I was going to dust off my sewing machine and bravely try and start sewing again, I was very lucky in that last weekend I got to book on a class at The Make it Room in Howe Green to learn to make cushions.

I’ve sewn an envelope cushion before, in fact it was the last thing I actually cracked the sewing machine out for. I even made up the pattern myself. But the fact that I haven’t blogged it tells you roughly how well it went. It’s ok, I mean, it’s in my front room so it’s not a total disaster-o-rama or anything, but the back rather gapes and it’s just…. well, the machine has gathered dust since then. That’s not a good sign is it? …

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DIY Pincushion

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As much as I love sewing, I have the attention span of a small child. I generally put this down to bing dyslexic, but if I’m honest a large part of it is just wanting to get something done. I work, I have a small child, dinner to cook, flat to clean, washing up to do, husband to hold polite conversations with. I long to do a huge patchwork throw for our bed, but in all honesty I don’t know where I’d find that time. Or the patience.

So, a pin cushion it is. A pin cushion that can be made between putting the child to bed and putting the dinner on which to me is the perfect length for a craft project.

Designed myself too! Not that its a biggie, but I know how some other people copy things off pinterest and I have gone utterly old school and ghetto here and copied the design from something I’d seen in Real Life and not on a computer screen. No good will come of this, obviously.

So, to make this, all you need is to draw and cut out two big circles on some nice material, preferably something that contrasts nicely, then use a sewing machine to go round the outside leaving a big gap to turn it inside out. Turn inside out, stuff with loads of toy filler and then sew the hole closed.

To make it look a bit funkier I added buttons on the top and the underside, this also meant that by sewing between the two of them I could make the cushion into more of a defined pin cushion shape as opposed to just a little cushiony lump. This was an utter faff. I mean it, large scale faffyness was involved here and some low level swearing too (large level swearing generally being reserved for baking). Obviously, the one I’d looked at had been done by a big machine, probably somewhere in China where as my poor clutzy hands in less exotic Essex were not so well designed for this task. Still, it does make it look a bit funkier, and I had it all finished in time for tea. After my last blog about drunken rock and roll antics, I can feel now like I’m back on the road to domestic goddessness, all be it with the normal vats of wine thrown in on route.