Patchwork Cushion // What You'll Need

YEY!  We have finished an introduction to sewing in Sewing School! Now its time to start making something. Woohoo! I have given you a list of ideas to work on but this tutorial is going to be broken down into bite sized chunks so even the most apprehensive learner will be able to take it all in. Over the next few weeks I will be going through the steps to make these two patchwork cushions. Mine are very simple black and white but you can make them from any fabric you like.

The first cushion is the checker board cushion:

And I'll also be sharing instructions for making a 'half square triangle' cushion:

To make both cushions you will need:

1 Fat Quarter (quarter of a metre) of fabric 1
1 Fat Quarter of fabric 2
1 Metre of fabric to line and back the cushions
2 16 inch square cushion pads
Coordinating thread
Sewing Machine and other basic supplies

My fabric 1 is the black fabric, my fabric 2 is white and I also used white for the lining and backing. So altogether I had 1 fat quarter of black and 1.25m of white. When choosing your thread choose a colour that match the darker of your two fabrics, so I used black thread. When you get your fabric make sure you prewash them to prepare them for sewing.

This is how the steps will be broken down:
1. Cut and Sew your fabric for the checkerboard cushion
2. Cut and Sew your fabric for the half square triangle cushion
3. Sew the lining onto your cushion top
4. Sew Up a Cushion

Come back on Friday and we can start cutting your fabric.  Zoe x

Homemade Wall Hangings Part II

This is the second idea for homemade wall hangings, you can see the photo hanging in part 1. For this second one we are going to make some art. You might remember me suggesting you save all your scraps from your quilt, even some of the quite tiny ones that were clearly too small to sew into anything and this is why. I was planning to make some 'art' out of them. Even if you haven't made a quilt or you have but haven't saved scraps you could easily make one of these out of some patterned paper, other fabric scraps cut into any shape you like.

I simply bought some blank canvases and got out my fabric scraps. I had a little play around with a few different layouts.

When I was happy with my layout I mixed up some PVA glue and some water to make a gloopy glue mixture (Mr Makers technical name for it). I then painted the canvas with the glue mixture. I dipped the fabric pieces in the mixture and then pressed them onto the canvass where I wanted them to go. It got quite messy so in hindsight I should have put some newspaper down underneath.

Then I made two more and left them out to dry. They're now up in our newly decorated bedroom. 

I find it hard to chuck away good bits of fabric, even these tiny ones so I am really pleased I thought up this project, plus it's much quicker and easier to use them this way than to try and fit them into a scrappy quilt. I have another idea for using some scraps that I will show you soon too, not for making art with this time... Zoe xx

Homemade Wall Hangings Part I

I recently shared with you our decorated bedroom. One of the projects I did for the room was to make some homemade wall hangings and this is the first of the two projects. I really wanted to have this photo, taken by the lovely Rebekah Cox, up on display. The origional photo was actually in colour:

But I felt that the room had a lot of colour coming from the quilt so I wanted something a little more 'grown up' and went with black and white, one day I might redo it in colour though because I do love this version. I prefer the look of a photo to a photo on canvas but I didn't really fancy having a large photo frame up. I decided to have a poster size photo printed and mount it on foam board to hang on the wall. This isn't exactly a tutorial because its so simple I am sure you could figure it out but I will tell you what I did any way.

I used my print in the largest size I could buy that kept the quality high, some foam board, a long ruler, some double sided tape and an old rotary cutter and some scissors (not shown). If you don't have an old rotary cutter you could just as easily use a stanley knife. Using the double sided tape a carefully stuck the photo into the corner of the foam board.

I then used my ruler and old rotary cutter to cut through the top layer of the foam board along the edge of the photograph. You can then bend the foam board back and the bottom layer snaps too.

And you can use your scissors to cut and parts that didnt make a clean break. You may need so trim some of the foam too.

Then thats it, you now just need to hang it up. It is so light that all I did was hot glued some string to the back to hang over my hook and you have a lovely hanging photo without needing to buy a large frame too.

Have you got some photos you've been meaning to hang for a while? I quite fancy doing some mini ones and making a wall collage since it was so easy. You can see the second of the two wall hanging projects soon. Zoe x

Newly Decorated Bedroom

When we moved into our house 3 years ago I wanted it to be really colourful, so we painted the walls really bright colours. It didn't take me long to realise that bright colours didn't have to be all over the walls to have a brightly coloured house and that these bright colours were not creating the restful atmosphere I needed. Luckily one of my favourite things to do is redecorate and the next room up for a change was our bedroom.


I am not sure I am ever finished with decorating and I haven't decided yet what lighting to have so these are the pictures before we change the lights. The colour on the walls is a much lighter blue than the original colour and now the most vibrant colour comes form our quilt. All the furniture and decor in this room is either second hand or homemade, or sometimes a mixture of the two. Our first house was almost entirely furnished with second hand furniture any way because we couldn't afford to buy the new things that we wanted, but over time I have built up quite a collection of second hand goods that I genuinely love. The two 'bedside tables' are a perfect example of this.

My Bedside table is also my desk. Our 3 bed house is quite cosy for the 5 of us so we have to make our rooms multifunctional and our bedroom is no exception. I showed you the bed that I upcycled and I have also redone a few other bits of furniture in here. We have left a few pieces exactly as we inherited them like these wardrobes. One of them we were actually given from my very generous in-laws when they moved house, the other we bought on eBay.

I saw this mirror at a car boot and thought it would be perfect in the room with the Octagons Quilt. You can see these flowers on my very first post ever which I made after seeing this Pin (one of my very first ever pins) planning to put them in my new bedroom so you can tell how long this project has been going on for. I will share with you the other projects for the room over the next few weeks. Time to plan the next room to decorate. Zoe xx

Make a Crochet Circle Cushion

A few weeks ago I shared with you my pattern for crocheting a circle pattern. Now you could easily use this pattern to make some doilies and just leave them as they are but I wanted to turn mine into a cushion. To to this I first of al put the crochet circle onto some fabric and drew around it the size of circle that I would need for the cushion:

I wanted the scalloped edge to hang over the cushion so I drew my line inside the edge of the crochet under the normal circle of crochet. Then I cut out two circles of the fabric:

 Then I machine stitched along the drawn line leaving a small space for stuffing the cushion:

I turned the cushion inside out (or outside out). Then I stuffed the cushion with some stuffing I had taken out of an old cushion we no longer use. I then hand stitched the opening shut and hand stitched the crochet to the cushion.

And hey presto a cushion! This will eventually sit on our bed but I have to finish the octagons quilt first. Nearly there though. Zoe xx

Upcycle: Painting an old Bed

We bought ourselves a new bed on ebay several months ago and I have always been intending on painting it, but this has been one of those projects that has never been at the top of my priority list (i.e I had more fun things to do). Since the weather has been nice recently and painting outdoors is about 50,000 times more convenient I finally got round to it.

If you're thinking of painting a piece of furniture these are the steps I followed. 1. Clean your furniture with sugar soap solution. Then gently sand the surface, just enough to roughen up the texture so the paint will stick. 2. Paint the furniture with the your chosen colour. 3. Varnish your furniture with clear varnish. That's it. I used to think varnishing after painting would make it look too shiny and totally change the look but I now I love the stuff. It doesn't change its look much but it makes the paint much more durable.

Origionally I intended to just paint the bed white but then I thought it would be cute to dip the feet in a colourful paint. The husband wouldn't go for pink (he said it was too girly) but he was totally happy with purple (his favourite, and very manly, colour).

And what a good decision this was! Love it! Its in our room now, with my new (but actually old) apple crates as under-bed storage. I'll show you a picture of the finished bed when I have also finished my Octagons Quilt. Zoe xx

Upcycle: Blue Bureau

I've been decluttering and redecorating my downstairs over the last year or so. To do a proper job I needed to buy a few new peices of furniture (ironic when I'm trying to get rid of things). When I say new, I mean new to me. I found a sweet old bureau to go near my entrance but wanted to make it my sweet old bureau. So I decided to paint it and distress it to make it my own. 

This is what I used:

1. A sweet old bureau 2. Sugar soap solution 3. White emulsion 4. Blue emulsion 5. Fine and coarse sand paper 6. Clear varnish 7. Two large paintbrushes  8. A drill 9. New drawer handles 

This is what I did:

I started by removing the original drawer handles and hinges and then I cleaned the furniture with sugar soap solution and used the find sand paper to lightly sand down the wood. I then painted it with a thick coat of white paint. When dry I painted it with the blue paint. I needed two coats of the blue to cover the white but if you can do it with one that's even better. 

I then sanded down the corners and areas where natural wear and test would occur with the coarse sand paper. This allowed the white paint to show through and created a 'shabby chic' appearance which I hope looks as though over a period of time it has received several paint makeovers. It's tricky to know how much to sand but I would really go for it because I wish I had sanded more. 

When I was happy with the look I used the second paintbrush to varnish it. This needed two coats. Then I screwed back in the hinges and drilled new holes for my new drawer handles. I bought these on eBay and LOVE them. 

Once the new drawer handles were screwed it it was finished and ready to go. 

I'm so pleased with this transformation and I'm looking forward to lining the drawers and inside. Ill show you that when I'm finished too. I hope you have some old furniture you can revive too. Zoe x