cushion madness

It’s official: I like sewing. Which is quite a biggie for someone who, until three months ago, was only capable of resewing buttons.

My new pre-loved couch gave me the inspiration and my softies projects the confidence to give a bigger project a go – cushions! I decided to take photos of each stage and post step-by-step instructions to hopefully inspire other button sewers to give it a go.

You will need:

• a cushion filler or an old cushion you’d like to revamp
• some fabric (at least twice the dimensions of the cushion filler)
• thread
• pins and needles
• a pair of fabric scissors 

I chose to use a patterned fabric for the front and a plain fabric for the back. I must say the hardest thing about the whole project was to choose only one fabric as there were hundreds I wanted to buy! The lovely lady at my favourite fabric shop advised me to go with cotton for my first attempt as it is easier to sew. She also said I should wash and iron it first. I would have, if it wasn’t for my eagerness to get started straight away .

Cut two pieces of fabric with a seam allowance of 1.5 cm, so 3 cm bigger than your cushion filler. My cushion filler was 30 x 50 cm so in my case, that was 33 x 53 cm.

With a fabric pencil or chalk (if you have one, otherwise a pen will do), mark the seam allowance on the back of one of the pieces.

Because I was over enthusiastic about sewing and had such pretty pattern to work with, I decorated some of its elements with colourful embroidery thread. I’ve used back stitches to sew along the birds and then cross stitches for some of the little yellow squares, but that’s really not necessary so if you want to keep things simple just ignore this step.

Place both pieces of fabric on top of each other, right side facing each other. Pin them together to hold them in place.

Thread the needle, give it a good knot and use straight stitches (ie needles goes up and down) to sew along the lines you’ve marked but leave one of the sides open so you can insert the cushion filler.

Once you’ve finished stitching along the lines, give it another good knot. Make a small diagonal cut on each of the corners being careful not to cut your stitches. This will help make sharper corners. Use the part left open to turn the cover inside out. Gently insert the cushion filler, being careful not to open up the stitches.

This part gets a little bit trickier. To close the part we haven’t sewn yet, fold in the rough end of both fabrics and sew it with ladder stitches. Basically, the needle starts from the underside of one fabric and goes parallely into the second and so forth, so that the stitches are not very visible.

Et voila! A brand new personalised cushion for a fraction of the price a bought cushion would cost.

One wasn’t enough to settle me down so I’ve ended up making another two cushions in the same style. The leftover plain fabric and spare buttons of long handed down clothes were the perfect excuse for a third - and a good opportunity to brush up on my button sewing skills.

recycling dumped furniture

I am often appalled by the things I find in the rubbish area of my building. Every week there are lounge sets, bookshelves, office desks, chairs – all in great condition other than normal wear and tear. I just can’t believe how some people can simply dump all these things and send them to landfill!

If I find any item that matches my own furniture, I take it home, give it a good clean, a small fix if needed, and reuse it. That already includes an outdoor dining set, two bookshelves, decorative willow branches, a brand new air-cooling unit and a couch/single bed.

Any other items in good condition but not matching my furniture receive the same treatment and goes on eBay for $0.99. It is a little bit of work to clean it up, take good photos, write up a nice ad and then organise the sale and pick up but it’s so rewarding to know nothing has gone to waste.

Still, I can only do so little compared to the amount of things that are dumped. Is there a better way to deal with this? Is there a way to make people think twice before sending good furniture to landfill? I’d be interested to know.

simple homemade christmas gifts

I can’t believe half of January is already gone! I hope it’s a sign that I’ve been having a good time. Either that or I’ve been really REALLY slack with my posts because here I am still posting about my Christmas crafts.

I’ve made these cookie jars for my work colleagues. As we didn’t have a kris kringle (aka secret santa) in the office this year, I had to come up with an affordable homemade gift to be able to give a gift to everyone rather than having to pick only a few people.

These charming glass jars actually came from my office. For some reason they don’t buy coffee in bulk and as a result we have two or three of these great looking airtight glass containers going to the bin every week. They are recycled but still... reuse comes before recycle!

So I’ve collected a few week’s worth of empty coffee jars, took them home and soaked them in water so I could remove the stickers.

I used scraps of felt and ribbons (most likely from previous Christmas gift wrappings) I had at home for the decorations. I baked a few batches of cookies and after they cooled down I filled up the jars.

Such a simple gift, so low cost and so fun to make. And made all my colleagues – and thus myself – so happy! Oooohhh... I miss Christmas already!!

recycled christmas tree

Not having to host Christmas this year, I went for much more modest, yet not less fun to make, decorations than the recycled christmas tree I've made last year. This is a project from Green Eyed Monster, and it costs absolutely nothing - to you or the planet - to make. All you need is one (or two) old magazines and some very, very basic origami skills. You could I guess spray paint it to fancy things up but I quite like the rustic, crafty look of the magazine pages.