Patches of Destruxion

Hello everybody! I am running late on this post, because at the end of February, I managed to break the fourth finger on my right hand.  So even though I managed to make all the blocks on time, typing has been painful, so it wasn't worth the effort of a blog post.  But my finger is recovering quite well now, so I feel up to typing again. February's theme in the #focuscuttingsewalong was 'Getting to know you'. In general, I don't get on very well with more abstract themes, and I  dislike enforced icebreakers. But as the month went on, I got into it a bit more, and in the end I made 6 blocks during the four weeks of February.  The prompt for the first week was 'Home'.  I really struggled with this one as I just found the concept so abstract. I eventually settled for a very mixed bag.  The top 3 half-hexies represent my three children as best I could from my stash. Two of them are perfect, but I need to embroider wings on to the lion to make that one more acc...

 Hello everybody! It was my little daughter's third birthday on Friday. She is currently a Minnie Mouse fan, and I had this sweatshirt that I bought in a charity shop last year, sitting around waiting for an upcycle. So I turned it into a cushion as a birthday present for her! Making these cushions is a service I offer in my Etsy shop. Partly so I could remember how I did it for myself, I recorded the process to make a photo tutorial for you all.  The bit I really wanted to record was keeping that ruffle at the bottom. This method would work with any similar hem detail you wanted to keep. 1 Turn the top inside out and used a cushion to mark your sewing lines, so your motif (if you have one) sits the way you want it to,.  This top is the right width that I don't have to take in the side seams to fit my cushion (a 16 inch square). I am pretty sure that makes the whole of this process a lot easier. 2 Chop off the bottom ruffle/hem detail. I gave myself 3 inches of fabric to ...

Hello everybody! We have been celebrating the birthdays of my two little boys this month. They are both Lego and superhero mad (and Lego superheroes are the height of perfection for them). My eldest is currently particularly in love with Iron Man and the Avengers. I have been thinking about making book cushions (also known as reading pillows) for a little while, so when I came across this T shirt in a charity shop, I knew it would make a perfect start for a gift for my eldest. For various reasons, I ended up making it at the last minute the evening before his birthday. It only took me about an hour and a half. I decided to use the T shirt as the main cushion cover. I added some bits from my stash to make the front pocket. I machine quilted the panel simply along the white grid lines, and finished it off with some red bias binding from my stash along the top edge. Then, with the panel pinned carefully in place, I made up the cushion cover the same way I do normally ...

Hello everyone! This is the sorry tale of a poor, badly-treated jumper. Don't worry, it has a happy ending. My mother-in-law bought a gift for her husband, a lovely thick, warm Scandinavian jumper. Sized XXL, it fit him beautifully and was lovely and snuggly and warm. Unfortunately, not long after being purchased, it went on a rather unwise trip through the tumble dryer, and came out somewhat smaller. It was no longer able to fit my father-in-law, but it was still a perfectly wearable jumper. So he gave it to my husband, who is slimmer than his father and it fit him nicely at the new size. We got strict instructions not to put it the tumble dryer. My husband did not put it in the tumble dryer. He did, however put it in the washing machine at 40 degrees. Which theoretically should have been fine, but the jumper did not like that either, and shrunk even further. So it now looked like this: With the baggy lining (which did not shrink) and the changed dimensions, it...

Hello everybody! I have been spending a lot of time recently on a Facebook group called the Up-Cycled Cloth Collective . They are a movement dedicated to keeping textile waste out of landfill. There are thousands of inspiring people doing their best to dye, sew and embroider all sorts of fabrics. I really want to try and do more of that sort of thing myself. A lovely little human recently had her first birthday. Her talented mother made her a play kitchen for her birthday present out of recycled materials. So I thought she needed some upcycled play food to go with it. I made 5 little bits. Photos are posed on my own children's play kitchen, which is not recycled but has been well used. First up, I made a milk bottle. This is made out of an old T shirt, with cardboard from a cereal box inside to stiffen it. It is stuffed with fabric and batting scraps. This was my raw material - this is all that could be salvaged from an old T shirt of my sons'. My first...