I Felt the Fear

I spent the morning in the bathroom with awful stomach cramps.  No idea where they have come from, but they were unappreciated.  Once they had gone, however, I got out the sewing machine.

There is no way I am posting pictures.  For one thing, the results look like a right dog's dinner.  For another thing, the background would show how desperately my house needs a clean.  But I sewed some stuff.  I feel like I should do a lap of honour.

I decided to sew the seat covers of the sofa.  The sofa is around ten years old.  It looks older.  I am not a brilliant housewife, and then you add that I've slept on it, bear's slept on it, bear was a toddler on it and the cats happened on it.  Now the fabric covering the cushions has disintegrated and it looks dreadful.  The frame is still sound, though, and I'm reluctant to get a new sofa until bear stops leaping on it.

The sofa seat cushions are 32 inches by 26 inches (@ 82cm by @ 66cm).  I don't have a place to easily cut that size of fabric.  I ended up using a combination of ironing board and bumpy dining table and cutting pieces of fabric on the fold.  A few years back I sort of accidentally bought half a dozen single duvet covers and I'm using those, so I used the seams and folds to help get pieces the size I wanted.  I did all three seat covers, but none of them are the same.  One has the seams of the duvet side seam in the centre, one has a side opening, one has an end opening.  I need to glue on the velcro at the entrance and see if they fit.

I cut out the pieces for the back cushions.  They may not be full of holes but they look very well worn.  They are 28 inches square (@ 71cm) and I got them all ready to go but it was time for bear's pick up so I'll have another go on Friday.

It was scary.  The seam allowances are all over the place, I had a serious problem trying to thread the needle, even using a needle threader, and the thread kept coming out of the needle so I'd carefully sew a seam only to find that nothing had happened.  But I did it.

Bless wrote an amazing quote by Eleanor Roosevelt, '"It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan".  I nearly gave up loads of times today, especially when I couldn't find the right way to cut the pieces out.  I may may not have achieved much, but I achieved not giving up.  I'm feeling good about that.