I Did Loads!

Actually, I didn't do everything I wanted to do, but I did more than I felt like doing when I got up this morning so I'm taking that as a win.

Of course, it never is that easy.  I couldn't find my sewing scissors so used kitchen scissors.  I tried using a rotary cutter for the first time, but I failed at it.  I couldn't find a marker so I ended up using biro on some bits.  But I actually did it!

First off I did the hot water bottle cover from Instructables, which you can find here.  It looks so easy when they do it.  You take your hot water bottle and place it on paper to draw around it for the pattern.  Bear's hot water bottle is bigger than the normal A4 printing paper.  Fortunately I had a load of the Amazon paper that had been crumpled up to pad out the box that the rule had come in, so I ironed some of that for the pattern.

I made drew around it on the packing paper, added an inch and a half for a margin, cut it out, placed it on the old fabric and then tried cutting using the rotary cutter.  The recycled baby blanket had been washed and washed and washed and was just too thick.  I ended up relying on the kitchen scissors.  So when it came to cutting the shape in half, adding a strip to make the envelope closure and then using them as pattern pieces, I just drew around the pieces in biro.

I managed to sew it together, more or less, and, while it's not exactly a thing of beauty, bear is very taken with it.

The overlap isn't a snug fit and I didn't bother with the sew on press studs.  I will use velcro attached by fabric glue if it becomes a problem.  The hot water bottle fits in fine.  I may have to make some more, but if I do I will either use different fleece, hand sew or both.  The layers were just too thick for my machine and it really struggled.

Then I made four cushion covers.  This is the first time I've made them where it actually mattered what size they were as I am using cushion pads.  I have made loads of cushions in the past, but they have all been hand sewn and then stuffed with filling (unravelled sweaters are awesome for it).  I used the envelope pattern from here, took a 'near as dammit' attitude and ended up with this.

The cushion pad is 20 inches or around 50cm square and I made the cushion cover around 19 inches or around 48 cm to give a puffed up look.  Because I was doing that I used a small stitch length because I knew that the cover would be a snug fit and also bear is still only ten and hard on cushions.

Also, today a lucet came in the post.  No idea what I'm going to do with it.