Tea Towel Cushion Covers

I'm always on the lookout for good value, nice quality fabric that I can use to make things with. It doesn't matter if it's an old shirt or blouse in a charity shop or a duvet cover that I no longer use in one of the bedrooms, in fact it could be anything. If I like it I will chop it up and re-purpose it. Last week, I nipped up to my local Aldi shop to grab some butter and milk and while I was there I spotted some lovely tea towels. They were very pretty and floral and the perfect colour to go with the two battered old chairs I painted a couple of weeks ago. At £2.99 for 3 and 100% cotton, they were also a bit of a bargain and one I couldn't pass up so I bought 2 lots. 

The pink and blue tea towels were destined to become cushion covers, the creamy white ones are beautifully soft and I am saving them to do some hand embroidered pictures with at some point. 

With the addition of some cute little pink flowers I had in my trimming stash, they were transformed into simple envelope cushion covers. I didn't even have to hem them I just stitched them together with the right sides on the outside and hey presto, 2 cute cushions. It took about 20 minutes to do both of them which is definitely my kind of sewing project .... I'm all for instant impact :-)

I also have a bit of a dilemma. I painted the chimney breast wall a very lovely, subtle, pale pink a couple of weeks ago and before I started painting, I removed the gigantic, overmantle mirror that was hung on the wall. It's really, really heavy and very awkward to put back up and unfortunately, once I had painted the wall I couldn't manage to get it back up onto the wall. So after waiting two weeks for someone to visit to give me a hand to get it back up, I took one look at it when my visitor had left and decided that it needs painting!! It's painted in Annie Sloan Old White at the moment but it needs to be brilliant white because against the pale pink it looks nasty and grubby! 

So, the dilemma ...... do I take it off the wall again and paint it, knowing I will have to wait at least a couple of weeks for someone to visit so they can help me put it back up or, should I try and paint it while it's still hanging on the wall? I don't want to break it, there are 5 mirrors in total and that adds up to a lot of years of bad luck if it falls off the wall while I'm painting it but equally, if I break it while I'm taking it down I could still be in a whole pile of bad luck bother. 

Oh the dilemma!!!

Pumpkins and Practicing My Patchwork

Wooohooooo It's Halloween and I know that some people say that it's an American thing but anything that includes sweets, chocolate and candles is ok with me.

Anyway, Halloween aside, today I have had a yearning for patchwork. I have been reading some lovely blogs with some truly beautiful patchwork pieces and I have always wanted to have a go at a really big patchwork project but have always found it a bit daunting. When my youngest daughter was a baby I did make a patchwork cot quilt which is still in one piece although a little worn around the edges but as it's almost 20 years old I guess that's only to be expected. So, this morning I grabbed some fabric squares from a pack I bought from my lovely local craft shop last year, that have been sitting in my fabric stash ever since, and I set too making some patchwork cushions with the idea that I should start small before I begin something massive.

I watched an online tutorial on making a disappearing nine patch quilt and I was amazed at how easy it was and how amazing it could look. The only problem was, having stitched my first lot of nine little squares together into a lovely big square, I didn't want to cut it up.  I'm not very good at using the rotary cutter, I don't seem to be able to get the hang of it at all and I'm afraid I'm going to ruin my lovely big square. Does anyone have any useful tips for rotary cutter technique that might help??

Anyway, this is how far I have got with my two cushions. Two fronts done, one with nine squares and one with 16, both of which are destined to be gifts and will embellished with beads, sequins and pearls before I turn them into cushions.