Diary of a Chain Stitcher

It seems very late in the day to be showing you guys some gifts I made for Christmas but I'm so proud of them I can't skip sharing! Despite deciding that trying to make too many gifts each year wasn't worth the panic during the run up to Christmas, I expected to have a fair bit of time in December and knew my family deserved some treats so went all out with the sewing this year. Of course I then ended up working some fairly crazy hours and with much less time to sew than I hoped it all became quite the rush! Some late nights were involved but it was worth it to see the looks on their faces on Christmas Day. I've sworn I'll cut down this year but I doubt that will happen again...partly because it's too difficult to resist the opportunity to sew some things which I'd never make myself! First up are my Mum's and Sister's which have a New York theme as both of them love the Big Apple. If you follow me on Instagram you may have spotted that I've just ...

I've got something slightly different to my usual completed projects to share with you today. To celebrate the opening of Mood Fabrics NYC's brand new showroom for home decoration fabrics the Mood Sewing Network bloggers were invited to do an extra home related sewing project for the network. I jumped at the chance to try out something new. I spotted a peak of the new store on the Mood Fabrics Instagram earlier in the week and I so wish I could visit in person! I've been wanting to brighten up our lounge for a while now and what better way to do this than with colourful scatter cushions in a variety of prints? To be honest while browsing Mood's range of home dec appropriate fabrics online I did get a little carried away and briefly consider a larger project such as curtains or a roman blind. I was also getting seriously sucked into dreaming about what could be done with some of the gorgeous laser cut velvets. However, this 'sewing for the home newbie'...

I just couldn't resist... Pic: Getty via metro.co.uk Pic: via the Northern Echo Just look at the joy in that face Pic: from @RightToPlay_UK on twitter But to make it a little bit more sewing orientated here's a cushion I made for my sister before I started blogging. The Chelsea logo is cross-stitched and measures about 10" x 10" and took a LONG time! But I love the therapeutic nature of stitching in front of the telly and how neat and accurate cross stitch turns out so it was one of my favourite projects. I made it into a very simple cushion cover by creating a frame for the cross stitch from some soft blue felted fabric using mitred corners. I then created a back out of the same blue fabric in the same size as the frame and stitched it all together. I just made the opening at the back overlap by quite an amount rather than fussing about with any kind of fastening. I decided to keep it very simple as I thought the cross stitch was enough of...

Finally! A finished product! I’ve had lots of projects on the go recently and a lot of them sitting around half finished as I’ve been hampered by not having the right tools and equipment as I’m just starting off. I know in situations like this I’m usually one for just seeing what else I’ve got to do the job and cutting a few corners but the results never turn out as well as I hope so with these sewing projects I really wanted to try not to rush things and do them properly. So at long last here is something to show for my efforts: I am very happy to proudly show these off around my home (although my boyfriend may be less willing to display stiletto covered cushions around the house!). The main fabric is a gorgeous printed cotton designed by Manolo Blahnik for Liberty which I just could not resist treating myself to even though it cost a lot more than I would ever normally be prepared to spend on fabric! But isn't it just beautiful?! It features his designs for last winte...