Scrap Happy December

A few years ago I decided that what I needed in the sitting room was a low coffee table that would double as a footstool and was not too high so that it didn’t stop the eye-line across the room which is small. I found a small pallet that part of the heating system was delivered on which I painted and added a set of castors which I found in the workshop so that it can be moved around. I debated making a cushion for the top but in the end decided tht a slab of foam would be better for it’s coffee table function.

I embroidered a cover for it using a piece of calico left over from making curtains and embroidery threads I have had for ages – I think some inherited from aunts who died!

My cats think it is a lovely spot for a snooze! Unfortunately in this weather they are usually damp and muddy and you can perhaps see that the cover is grubby with pawprints. I realised that what I need is a second cover so that I can wash them more frequently – like every time a visitor is coming and I want the place to look nice!

I didn’t want a plain piece of fabric, haven’t time or inclination to embroider another one, hadn’t got a piece of patterned stuff that was the right size or colour so chose to do some simple patchwork. Those of you who do precision patchwork please stop reading NOW! If I want precision I do hand stitched hexies. This is high speed ‘it’ll do’ patchwork!

I have lots of sheeting and similar weight fabric in my collection, most of it from old duvet covers and sheets which my neighbour gave me. I tore 4 inch strips, cut them to random lengths and joined them, again randomly, into one long snake. Then cut that into the width of the top plus an inch for seams and joined them side by side. It turned out I had been a bit over enthusiastic and had enough to make a pair of fronts for cushions too. The piece for the stool top is applied to another piece of calico and the cushions are backed by more sheeting. Quick to make, cheerful. goes with anything and easy to remove and wash – What’s not to like?

Scrap Happy is curated by Kate and Gun on the 15th of each month – a collection of posts about things made from scrap. Not everyone posts every month but follow the links below for lots of inspiring ideas.

Kate, Gun, Titty, Heléne, Eva, Sue, Lynn, Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy, Tracy, Jill, Claire, Jan,
Moira, Sandra, Linda, Chris, Nancy, Alys, Kerry, Claire, Jean,
Joanne, Jon, Hayley, Dawn, Gwen, Connie, Bekki, Pauline,
Sunny and Kjerstin

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Blessing # 3 – C is for Challenges

I have a low boredom threshold! To keep doing the same things in the same way drives me nuts! It is why I have accumulated so many hobbies and activities and am having to reluctantly admit I can’t do them all. But still I need new challenges.

Sometimes the challenge is to learn a new skill or extend an old one. A month ago I found a book of knitting patterns in the library – Viking knits & Ancient Ornaments by Elsebeth Lavold. She describes a whole series of interlocking designs, gives patterns for the motifs and some very elegant garments with the motifs on them. I am a sucker for celtic knots so I borrowed the book. The yarns she suggests are not ones I can source locally and before I could go into the wool shop in Cardigan market and find an equivalent we were all told to stay home. But I was itching to see if I could cope with some new techniques and keep track of a complex sequence of cables so I picked one of the motifs and knitted a cushion cover using yarn I already had. I finished the knitting last night but have not had time yet to stitch it up. I was going to make buttonholes in the back to allow me to take it off for washing – the cats drop hairs all over my cushions so they need regular washing – but dedided to make some loops on the edge instead using a technique I adapted from the hair of the glove puppets I have been working on. read about them here if you missed them

Sometimes it is a bigger or longer one like working for the Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design. I have to write up and submit ten designs I have done. In my case these are all about designing my life so that I can live as well as possible into advanced old age. The designing is great fun but the writing it all up with detailed explanations of the choices I made is proving very tedious! Why am I doing it? It has no practical use to me since there is nothing I want to do which requires me to have it. I just wanted to prove to myself that I could, that my designing skills were good enough, my understanding of Permaculture was deep enough. And now I am too stubborn to give up! My amazing, wonderful daughter found this poster to sum it all up for me and it will form the cover of my portfolio.

Scrap Happy December

Two for the price of one this month!

You may remember that I was invited to a lunch to celebrate the 2nd birthday of my neighbours’ adopted child at rather short notice. I wanted to take a present but did not have time to go out and look for something. Rummaging through my patterns I found this one for a knitted rabbit which recommended using up odd scraps of yarn. I have no idea where the pattern came from – it seems to have come as an email but I have no idea who sent it.

As I had plenty of small balls of yarn and the remains of a bag of toy stuffing I set to work. It took far longer than I had intended or anticipated but I was rather pleased with the result.

The second project was another birthday present. This one was for my grandson, Sam, who was 18 on Wednesday. Some years ago I made each of the grandchildren a rectangular cushion and embroidered it as a postcard. It had a scrap of velvet as a stamp, the address was ‘To name, Anywhere in the World’ and the message was ‘Love from Mam-gu’. Mam-gu is Welsh for Grandma and is what they all call me. As my son and daughter-in-law were looking after three foster children at the time and I wanted to include them with my four birth grandchildren, that was seven cushions! They seem to have been a hit because although the foster children were moved on and I am no longer in contact, I spot them from time to time in my grandchildren’s bedrooms or brought with them if they are camping here. When I visited my daughter at half term Sam waved his at me and asked for another one so that is what he got. But I decided to do a different design as he is now (at least technically!) a grown up. A quick hunt through my stash brought to light an expensive black velvet skirt that was given to me to recycle because it no longer fit it’s owner, (a much larger lady than me or I would have snaffled it) and some red ‘fur’ fabric used for making teddy bears years ago. Both are soft with a lovely ‘feel’ to them. A skein of thick red embroidery thread from my box and I was ready to go.

As Sam’s sister has her birthday in early January I just have to think of something to make for her! Could be you will see that as my next Scrap Happy post! But first there are Christmas presents to finish and as my son and daughter-in-law now have another three foster children who will be with them, all being well, until they reach adulthood, Georgia’s gift will have to wait until after Christmas.

I’ve been inspired to write this (and future) ScrapHappy posts by Kate, Tall Tales from Chiconia, one of my favouruite blogs. On the fifteenth of every month lots of other folks often publish a ScrapHappy post – some fabric or yarn, some other stuff but all inspiring. For some reason ‘cut and paste’ is not working properly so I cannot put all the links here. Please look at Kate’s site and follow the links from there – it is well worth the effort! http://talltalesfromchiconia.wordpress.com

Scrap Happy November

I spent a lovely few days with my Daughter earlier this month. She works in a school as a Learning Support Assistant supporting children with complex needs one-to-one so that they can access mainstream school. This year she is working in the reception class with a little boy who is 4 years old but has the developmental age of less than 1 year – still in nappies, unable to use language and with a very short attention span. I am so proud of her and the progress she is helping him make! At the same time she has started on an Open University course to complete the degree she started on locally part time, but never finished because the last modules were aimed at wannabe teachers and that is not where she wants her career to go. She needed somewhere to study and to make her bedroom a more pleasant space. It was furnished with the things no-one else wanted, had an old single bed which was not very comfortable and was full of stuff from her days as a childminder which she had kept ‘just in case’.

So at the start of half-term I went over to help her turn her room into a place where she could study, read, write and where she would want to be rather than feeling banished! We had a good clear-out first and shared the spoils around several charity shops! Some of the furniture went to a friend of hers who has an up-cycling business and within 48 hours an old coffee table had been repaired, painted and was in her on-line shop (no that is not my scrap-happy, just my delight that a scruffy piece that was of no use to my daughter found a bit of TLC and will go to a new home).

We decided not to repaint the walls but she used tester pots of paint to create a mural in one corner – you can just see the end of it in the picture below. My son suggested that an ottoman bed would be somewhere to store all the toys she felt she wanted to keep (she uses a lot in her job since often the school budget will not stretch to buying special items). With new curtains and bedding, a second hand bureau from the charity shop the room was taking shape nicely.

What it needed were some cushions to make the bed more inviting. We had seen lots of ‘OK-ish’ ones when we were hunting bedding but decided it was time to get creative. Two old jumpers, one grey and one mustardy yellow made 2 square covers for which we did have to buy new pads (all the old cushions were polyester filled and had gone very flat). But what was needed was more texture and a cover for a rectangular pad that was fine. Then a rummage in the deep cupboard over the stairs to make room to store the old single duvet brought a muffled cry of ‘Eureka!’ And out came an old bathmat. A splash of bleach had given it a few white strands which were hardly noticeable. But of course my daughter knew they were there and so every time she used it that is what she saw – and started kicking herself again for being careless. Folded in half it was just the right size and the white threads could be at the back out of sight. So whilst she made supper I hand stitched the cover together (it was too thick and tightly woven for the machine) and voila! One very textural cushion in just the right shade!

Here are the links for everyone who joins ScrapHappy from time to time (they may not post every time, but their blogs are still worth looking at). If you’ve copied this list from previous posts, please use the one below as it’s the most up to date 🙂

Kate (me!), Gun, Titti, Heléne, Eva, Sue, Nanette, Lynn, Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy, Debbierose, Tracy, Jill, Claire, Jan,
Moira, Sandra, Linda, Chris, Nancy, Alys, Kerry, Claire, Jean,
Joanne, Jon, Hayley, Dawn, Gwen, Connie, Bekki, Pauline and Sue L.

Getting creative

I love making things but haven’t posted about the creative side of me for a while. It was only when I was reviewing some photos that I realised how many things I had made recently.

The first was a blanket for my grandson Sean. Since he started at Swansea University (read about him here )he has been saying that he is sometimes cold in his room. I suspect that he has been sitting still for too long late at night – hopefully studying but probably gaming on his computer! He had been taking his duvet cover off and wrapping himself up in that so I thought I would make him a blanket. He is young, male, only recently domesticated and there is not much space for him to store things in his room in Halls. So I used synthetic double knitting in boy colours! And since I get bored knitting a whole blanket in one piece I did squares and crocheted them together. To make it more fun I devised a number of variations on a theme of stripes of stocking stitch and reverse stocking stitch.

Then it was my daughter’s birthday and I spotted a remnant of linen in the Ecoshop in Cardigan. Just enough to make a cushion. I had some felt left over from making Christmas decorations and there were tulips beginning to flower in the garden. Hey presto..

Looking for the felt I saw most of a ball of Aran weight wool left over from a jumper I made a few years ago. Several of my own cushion covers are coming to the end of their lives so I fiddled around and devised a pattern. There is a similar amount of blue in the same yarn so maybe there will be a pair soon.

Then Mrs Snail and I went on a course at Studio 3 in Cardigan to learn how to make a coptic bound book. She has already blogged about our day so you can read about it (here) Mine was a birthday present for my son so I had to stay quiet about it until now!

Finally my new friend Roni came over and showed me how to turn a bowl on the lathe. She is a professional woodturner (find her here) and makes some beautiful things but also proved a very good and patient teacher so it was great to learn from her. We found an old piece of wood which was already cut into a disc shape but it proved to be rather rough and a bit too old so it was not worth sanding and polishing. Even so I was quite pleased with what I produced and have started on another with a better bit of wood.

Apart from the book they have all involved designing as well as making so my creativity has had quite a good workout recently!