Monday, February 14, 2011

What can you do with a jelly roll?

Remember this jelly roll I got ages ago? Well it is finally all used up. All I have left is a couple of little scraps that I just can't throw out but I've managed to make three things out of the roll with hardly any wasted. Here's a looksy.
This one I've shown you before, it's a table topper for a little cane side table and was made with a wedge ruler.
This one is a table runner I made with the leftover bits from the throw pictured below. I used the greeny blues and the dark blues/navy that were left and just stitched bits together after laying the fabrics out in a nice way. The outer border was made with some batik fabric that went with the prints.
This throw is made with the jelly roll and a charm pack I managed to hunt down. I just cut the strips up to make a square around each charm square and sewed them together.
So there you go, three items from one jelly roll! How many can you do?

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Super Sweet Slipcover

So I found this chair at the tip. (In the recycling shop, not on an actual pile of rubbish!). It was looking a bit sad and worn out so I scrubbed all the flaky bits of varnish off and cleaned it up, then gave it a spray with a can of white gloss spray paint. It was in good condition structure wise so that was all it needed to look a bit happier. Since then it has been sitting in the lounge room with a cushion on it waiting to have some kind of transformation happen. Well, I finally got around to it and here is the result.
First I took a few measurements and made a pattern out of some light interfacing to get an idea of what to cut out. I got some foam from SL and cut the shape out using the interfacing as a pattern. I cut the foam in half across the spot where the seat bit meets the back rest so that once it was in the slipcover it would be easy to bend to fit the shape of the chair.
Then I wrapped some wadding around each piece a few times (just a thinnish wadding, nothing too thick) and secured it with some tacking stitches. I snipped bits of wadding here and there to fit it around the shape of the foam.
Once both pieces were wrapped I laid them down in between the fabric I selected (Amy Butler, Temple somethingorother, off Etsy) with right sides together and pinned around the foam shapes as close as I could get. Then I very carefully pulled the foam pieces out of the pinned fabric and stitched around the shape following the pins, leaving an end open for turning.
I ended up overlocking the edges after I trimmed the seam allowance back a bit to keep it neat.
Then it was just a matter of turning it right sides out and slipping the foam bits back in before slip stitching the opening closed.
The chair seems a bit happier and brighter now and I love looking at the colours on it!

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Oh Dear!

This is headed towards the Queensland coast at the moment.
Like we really need it after the floods and all the devastation that hit the the bottom two thirds of the state.
Now the top third will be joining in.
Do you think someone is out to get us?
Good luck and stay safe everyone.