Tag: tana lawn

A simple Thing; an ironing board bringing Joy

A simple thing which brings a smile to every day tasks.

Finished article
something simple to give pleasure in use

William Morris (British textile designer, associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement.) said “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” Well I have a number of things in my house which while useful, do not bring me joy.

Simple things
the starting point

One such is my tabletop ironing board that I use for craft projects; I had been aware for a while that when ironing I could feel and sometimes see the wire base imprinting on the fabric. It needed a make over. So I took it apart and then realised I didn’t have the wadding I needed to repair it. Rats!   Being on lockdown due to Covid 19 there was no bobbing out to buy more. 

new wadding
a little pieceing needed

 Finding a couple of small pieces, which I thought would be suitable, I needed to piece it to fit the frame. A simple zigzag stitch keeps it together. I’d taken the cover off and so took the decision to wash it while I sorted the lining.

 The new wadding was stuck to the original wadding with spray glue to stop the two layers moving against each other. The two layers together gave a much more substantial padding, which I hope will improve the pressing of my craft projects.

ugly cover fabric
Grubby, faded, not giving me joy

Putting the old cover back on didn’t fill me with joy, its boring, white and still stained, and to make matters worse when trying to get it off I snapped the draw string which fits it to the ironing board. I thought I might use elastic to replace it but again due to Covid19 I had no elastic. Well I did but I had another far more important use for it, of which more later ( see blog post “worldwide pandemic” )

Trawling through my haberdashery stash I found a cone of black polyester ribbon about .5cm wide, normally I wouldn’t dream of using black ribbon as a drawstring on a white project but needs must. It threaded well with a bodkin and it did the job.

Mis-printed Libery lawn
even misprints have their uses.

Before putting it back on I used it as an approximate pattern for another cover. I’d seen on another blog somewhere, sometime, can’t remember when,  a new cover made with a gorgeous Liberty fabric.  I have some Liberty fabric, bought many years ago again can’t remember where or when but it’s mis-printed so over the space of several yards there are many different misprints, from almost perfect, to completely unrecognisable. Consequently I’ve never found a purpose for it. So I reckoned I could spare a half yard piece from one end.

A thing of beauty....
the finished article, a joy to use.

The result is another cover, over the original, and with a similar black poly ribbon drawstring. It fills me with joy. Such a simple change, no money spent, everything came from my stash. A pleasure to use, and I don’t have to hide it or stow it away when we have visitors. A simple thing which brings a smile to every day tasks.

New Luggage and matching Slippers

I love Pinterest, you just search for a pattern and up comes exactly what you need. In this case a Butterick pattern for Slippers from 1955.

Last summer my Dearest decided that our youngest at 16 was old enough to be left at home overnight, while we went off for a single night away in a hotel, (Hallelujia, freedom at last.) We booked a night in a lovely Hotel in the Lake District, The Inn on the Lake, Glenridding, at a bargain price. But then the problems began, fancy hotel… what to wear? What to pack? No suitable PJ’s , no decent luggage,I don’t want to arrive looking like the poor relations. Since I plan to make weekends away a regular occurrence in my life I decided a weekend bag was a definite need for me, and my dearest, thought a suit carrier was also required, this night away was looking less of a bargain.

slippers
my gorgeous new weekend bag

Ebay supplied me with a beautifully supple red leather weekend bag, less than half the price of a new one, I was so pleased with it. I decided what would make it even better would be some matching shoe bags to keep my shoes separate from my clothes, and a pair of slippers too. And I was going to make them with as little money spent as possible.

slippers
which would you choose?

A quick look through my stash yielded a number of suitable red fabrics for my shoe bags and slippers, deciding which one to use was easy I just draped them over the lovely leather weekend bag in the garden. The Liberty Tana lawn in the middle? Yes.

slipers
slipper pattern

I love Pinterest, you just search for a pattern and up comes exactly what you need. In this case a Butterick pattern for Slippers from 1955. And Purlsoho.com for the shoe bags.

slippers
Cinderella will go to the ball

I rooted out those fancy evening shoes, the only decent heels I’ve got and cut the fabric to make two bags big enough to fit those shoes, my usual flats will fit if they do. Two simple bags, the tops turned down to make a tube for the drawstring , and ribbons for drawstrings.

slippers
Cut out and ready to quilt.

And so to the slippers, I printed out the pattern, and put my foot on it, to check the size, it looked a bit big but better that than too small. I could always trim it back once I started putting the slippers together.

Cut 4 soles, 2 left two right, and 4 tops, which are the same shape left and right.

The wadding is a piece of curtain lining with a needle punch wadding on one side, to line winter curtains. To stiffen the slipper sole I used iron on Pelmet Vilene, it comes in a handy width, just a tad less than the width of my slippers.The only thing I bought was the red bias binding. The pieces were put together and quilted with random lines of stitching, I was up against it time wise, needed to finish them before I began to pack , so I wasn’t too picky about the quilting, it just needed to hold the layers together. I just needed slippers to go in the bag.

slippers
The binding

I managed to stitch one slipper together before I had bound the raw edges of the slipper top…Doh! Un-pick and start again Alison. My only struggle with the slippers was with the bias binding, it wasn’t quite wide enough to stitch on the top and then ease over onto the back and catch down with topstitching, I had to top stitch 2 or 3 times to ensure I caught it all the way round. I think I should have trimmed the sole back more accurately before easing the binding over the raw edge.

slippers
slippers finished

Here you see my slippers, made for pennies, finished on time, bags packed and ready to go on holiday.