I'm a marketing coach and trainer by day, but in my evenings and weekends I love to drive my sewing machine, wield a needle and generally create things out of fabric.
Here's a project I made last week for my daughter's newly decorated room. I've written below how I made it, more conversationally than a set of instructions, but I hope it inspires you to make something similar.
It started life as an old office pin board that I had lurking (it was 3 ft x 2ft), and three of Charlie's old dresses, that she loved but had grown out of.
I spend an evening separating all the useful fabric from the dresses (including unpicking 2mm darts...what on earth were they they for??!!) and ironing it out to see what useful fabric I had.
I measured up the board and worked out a simple rectangular block patchwork pattern in my sketch book. I worked out the quantity of each block - in this case (with the dark colours making a 'C' for Charlie). This was the original pattern from my sketch book.
When calculating the rectangles, don't forget to add half an inch to the length and half an inch to the width to allow for a quarter inch seam allowance. (ie a 6" x 4" finished size rectangle becomes 6.5" x 4.5" cutting size).
And so...despite planning to the nth degree, life never quite works out like that and when I laid my rectangles out, I moved a few of the light and medium pieces around so that they properly alternated.
Having moved all the pieces around until I was happy with them, I then sewed the length way strips together using a quarter inch seam allowance. As you sew each strip, iron the seams in opposite directions - ie so the seams of strip one go in direction A and the seams of strip two go in direction B, the seams of strip three go in direction A again and the seams of strip four go in direction B.
Continue in this fashion: it helps for your seams to match up exactly when you come to put the rows together. If you're new to patchwork, don't bother to secure your thread ends - they all get caught up when you sew across the hroizontals, so they all get secured at some point.
When you've finished sewing the length way strips to make rows of rectangles (and by the way, I kept my lay out on the floor, and picked up each piece as I needed it, and laid the completed row back down again when I'd completed it. Saves confusion!!) pin the first row to the second row. Start with butting up your two seams to one another and pin the seams in place. Then pin the remainder.
Sew the rows together, one by one. I like to iron as I go to make sure the seams match up, but it's up to you. I like my seams matching, but that's just me. You could layer your design like a brick wall if you don't want to bother with seam matching!
Having completed this section, I made up two strips out of a solid colour (the lining of one of the dresses, but I had to sew shorter strips together to make a longer length), 3" wide, and sewed that on to the top and bottom lengths of the centre panel (the decorative bit). I cheated and made them slightly longer, then trimmed them! Then I measured up the two sides (now including the solid colour borders top and bottom) and made up another two strips, again 3" wide and sewed those on. To prevent fraying I sewed a quarter inch hem all the way around.
I laid this on my pin board and centred it up so I was happy with it, and used drawing pins to hold in place. I bought (the only thing I did buy) a couple of reels of grosgrain ribbon and made a criss-cross pattern, leaving tails of ribbon each end so I could attach them. I used drawing pins to secure these.
Carefully turning the pin board over, I then used a staple gun (be careful - they're lethal!) and stapled all the way around, pulling the fabric and ribbon tails slightly taught as I went.
Nige went round at the end with a hammer to make sure all the staples were in place. The final bit was to make sure I was happy with the placement of the drawing pins.
Nige then went all manly with his drill and put it up on the wall, and ta da! Job done!
NB - some of the dress fabric was appalling to sew with; it seems that children's clothes from the supermarkets aren't made of the best quality! The M&S dress fabric was fine however. Going slow on my machine seemed to help. Plus much swearing. And tea. :-)
Have fun!
Kim
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