Part 2 of Recovering Lawn Chair Cushions – The Faux Piping

To create the faux piping effect on the cushions, I took advantage of the white stripes on the blue and white striped fabric.

I placed the ruler lengthwise along the stripes, so that I would be leaving ½” of white along each side of the blue stripes.   Then I cut along the entire length of the fabric with my rotary cutter, moving the ruler as needed.

When I was unpicking the back and seat cushions to get the fabric pieces to use as patterns, I noted that the side piece of each cushion had a curve on one side of each end.    That curved section was stitched to the longer front and top sections of each cushion.

I cut a small paper pattern piece of that curved end.

Then once I had cut the blue strip to the correct length, I pinned the pattern in place and cut it out.

I then unpinned the pattern piece, flipped it over and pinned and cut the other end.

The end looked like this after cutting.

When it came time to sew the side strip to the cushions, I used a ¼” seam allowance which when the cushion was turned right side out left ¼” of the white showing; giving the cushions that faux piping effect.

In my next post on recovering lawn chair cushions, I’ll have photos of how I sewed the finished back and seat cushions together to make them into a complete lawn chair cushion.   Hint:  It required two people.

 

This post has been added to Sew Darn Crafty Party Week 55 over at Sew Many Ways.

Recovering Lawn Chair Cushions – Part 1

Last summer, I recovered all 5 of our lawn chair cushions.  It was a huge undertaking but the finished result was so worth it.

Ready to sit in and chat.

While it’s unlikely that you have the exact same set as I do, I thought I’d share with you how I went about recovering mine.

I’ll start with the fabric I used.  In the spring of 2011, Hancock Fabrics had a mega fabric clearance sale.  You can see some of the fabric I managed to pick up in the second of my How Not to Destash posts.

In addition to bolts and bolts of 100% cotton priced at $1 per yard, they also had several rolls of their upholstery fabric priced at $2 per yard.   I knew I would need at least 10 yards to recover our lawn chairs.  Unfortunately, when I found a roll of fabric that I liked… there weren’t quite seven yards of it.  Not to mention, those seven yards weren’t continuous yardage but in two separate pieces on the roll.

But I really, really liked that fabric.

So I searched through the rest of the upholstery fabric and found a large striped fabric that matched the blue and white of the main fabric priced at $4 per yard.  There was a little over 3 ½ yards of it.

I figured if I used the striped fabric for the sides of the cushions, I might have just enough of the main floral fabric for rest of the cushions.  (I did end up having to piece some fabric to make the fifth cushion but as it’s on the back and bottom of the cushion, it’s not noticeable.)

To make the pattern:

On several of our cushions, the fabric was very badly worn so when it came time to making a pattern for the new covers, I chose one of the cushions where the fabric was in good enough condition to provide pieces to trace around.

Then I carefully unpicked the seams that held the back and seat of the cushions together; taking note that the originals had been sewn together using an enclosed or French seam.

In other words, the back and seat had originally been sewn together with the front of the back cushion facing the top of the seat cushion and then turned and sewn with the back of the back cushion facing the bottom of the seat cushion; thus enclosing the seam allowance and making a strong, cleanly finished seam that wouldn’t fray over time.

With those two seams unpicked, I had two separate cushions; a back cushion and a seat cushion.

Then once I had those two cushions completely taken apart, I ended up with 6 pieces from which to make my paper pattern; the front, back and side of the cushion back and the top, bottom and side of the cushion seat.

I gave all the fabric pieces a quick pressing to make the seam allowances lay flat.

After comparing the fabric pieces, I could see that the front and back of the back cushion were shaped exactly the same except the front was ¾” longer.  The same held true for the seat cushion, with the top being ¾” longer than the bottom.

So for the paper pattern, I folded a large piece of packing paper in half.  Then I folded the shorter of the fabric pieces of each cushion in half along the length, placed the fold of the fabric against the fold of the paper and traced around the fabric.  I then took that paper pattern and add ¾” to make the front/top cushion paper patterns.

Cutting the fabric:

When it came time to start cutting fabric for the front of the back cushion and the top of the seat cushion, I noticed that the fabric had a repeating floral design.  On the finished cushion, I wanted the designs on the front of the back cushion to line up with those on the seat cushion once those two cushions were finally sewn together.  And I wanted each of the five cushions to look the same once they were complete.

I chose which part of the floral design I wanted centered on the cushions and then laid a long straight piece of wood (from Dave’s stash in the garage) on the fabric being careful to have that straight edge line up along the center of the two flowers, I wanted to match.

Then I folded the paper pattern pieces in half and lined them up along the piece of wood.

I secured the pattern in place with a couple of pins, removed the wooden stick, flipped the pattern pieces open and pinned both pattern pieces in place.

It was then just a simple matter of cutting around the pattern.  I followed the same procedure to cut out five sets of the front and top cushion pattern pieces.

Since the back of the back cushion and bottom of the seat cushion wouldn’t be seen together once they were in the chairs, it didn’t matter if the design on the fabric lined up exactly, so I just pinned those in place making best use of the fabric and then cut them out.

As I cut out the fabric, I made a separate pile of cut out pattern pieces for each cushion and then throughout the sewing process, I maintained those piles so that when it came time to finally sew the back cushion to the bottom cushion there would be no guessing which of those carefully cut out pieces went together.

The photo above shows one completed cushion and two that were waiting to be sewn together.

In my next post on recovering lawns chair cushions, I’ll show how I used the striped fabric to create that faux piping effect on the cushions.

 

This post has been added to Sew Darn Crafty Party Week 55 over at Sew Many Ways.

How to Join Strips of Striped Fabric

While searching through and organizing my computer photo files, I came across pictures I had taken while joining the striped borders for the flying zebra baby and child-sized quilts.  At the time, I thought maybe others would like to see how I went about sewing the strips of border fabric together on the diagonal while at the same time matching up the stripes, so this is rather long overdue catch up post.

I realize that I could have simply sewn the strips together by placing the strips right sides together and stitching across the end but I prefer the way the diagonal seam makes the seam almost disappear.

And there may be other methods out there for matching up striped fabric, but this is the method I use.

First, I place one strip of border fabric right side down on the ironing board.

Then I fold the upper right corner down to form a point, making sure that the two raw edges of fabric meet as pictured below.

Press well.

Next, with wrong side of the folded and pressed strip to the right side of a second strip of border fabric, I carefully line up the stripes.

Open up the folded strip and pin to the second strip as shown.

Fold the top strip back to make sure that it didn’t shift during the pinning process.

Add more pins if you wish.

Sew along the pressed crease line to join the strips together.

Trim seam allowance.

Press seam open.

Turn the strip over and press again from the right side.

As you can see the seam is almost invisible.

You’re now ready to join more strips, depending on how long you need to make your quilt border.

How to Make Twice Baked Potatoes

This is more of a method, rather than a recipe.

First bake the potatoes; how many will depend on how many people you are feeding.

Once the potatoes have cooled enough to handle, hold the potato as pictured and cut off the top.

Scoop the soft center of the potato into a bowl.

The shells will look like this.

Mash the potatoes in the bowl.  To the mashed potatoes add:

1 Egg for every two potatoes

2 tbsp of milk per potato

Finely chopped onions that have been sautéed until translucent.  More onions if you like onions, less if you don’t or leave them out completely

Salt and Pepper

Stir everything together.  If necessary allow this mixture to cool further before adding ¼ c (per potato) of sharp cheddar cheese.

Next fill the shells with the potato mixture, dividing the mixture evenly amongst all the shells.

The filling will more than fill the shells and will form a nice mound over which you can place you toppings.   Sprinkle with paprika.

Top with more grated cheddar cheese, if desired.

Place in microwave for 4 minutes on medium heat or in the oven at 350F for 30 minutes or until heated through.

Here we’ve served the twice baked potato with our recipe for Hawaiian Chicken.

You can also added chopped bacon to the cheddar cheese topping.

However you choose to top them, these will be delicious.

How to Mend a Torn Sheet

Last summer, the sheets were on the line when we had one of those pop up thunder storms come through.  We hurried out to rescue the sheets before they got soaked.   They hadn’t had a chance to completely dry, so we decided to hang them over a couple of bedroom doors.

Except… when I was trying to fling the fitted sheet over the door, it didn’t go over far enough, so I gave it a bit of a tug (something I’ve done lots of times before.)  But this time when I did it, I heard that awful sound of ripping fabric.

Just look at that:

I was so upset, because these sheets are only a couple of years old and should have lasted several more years.

Here’s how I went about mending the tear:

First, I needed some matching fabric for the patches, so I used the end of one of the pillowcases that go with this set of sheets.

I turned the pillowcase inside out and then measured and drew a line an inch from the end of the pillowcase.

Then I sewed along that line with my serger to close up the end of the pillowcase and the piece that got cut off became the fabric for the patches.

As the end of the pillowcase was on a fold, I got a strip 2” wide.

I measured the tear to determine what size of patch I needed to cut.

I like to have a good size patch covering any tear in fabric that I’m repairing, so I cut the patches 5 ½” long.

Next I folded and pressed under a ¼” all the way around each 5 ½” X 2” patch.

Then on the wrong side of the sheet, I pinned the first patch in place, making sure to have the tear centered in the patch.

A tip when pinning… think about which direction you’ll be sewing along each side of the patch and place your pins so that the points are away from you.

Once pinned and before starting to sew, it's a good idea to turn the sheet over to make sure that the tear is centered on the patch.

I then machine basted that patch in place.

The sheet was turned to the right side and the second patch was pinned and sewn in place, making sure that I lined up the top patch over the patch on the wrong side of the sheet.

Patching both sides of the sheet may seem like overkill but from past experiences with mending sheets, I’ve found that a single patch doesn’t have the durability of this double patching method.

Case in point… six months later and the repaired sheet is still in use and the patch has remained strong.

Note:  Our sheets were one of the things I packed to bring with us.  It was great to have them when we were in the temporary housing in Ontario at Christmas time.  It helped it to feel a little more like home.  And they will do so again once we’re settled somewhere.

 

This post has been added to Frugal Fridays over at Life as Mom.

How to Remove a Vintage Singer Sewing Machine from Its Cabinet

While browsing through the search words or phrases that have brought people to my blog I noticed a few were searching for how to remove a vintage Singer sewing machine from it’s cabinet so I thought a quick picture post was in order.

First you’ll want to lift the machine out of the cabinet and tilt it all the way back.

On the underside of the machine, you’ll see two copper hinges.

If you look directly above each hinge, you’ll see a screw that is holding the hinge in place.

Loosen that screw on each hinge.  There’s no need to remove the screw, simply loosen it enough to be able to lift the sewing machine off the hinges.

To return the sewing machine to its cabinet, place the hinges in the upright position.

Then lower the machine onto the hinges and retighten the screws firmly to hold the machine in place.

Return the machine to the upright position for use or lower it into the cabinet and close the lid to store.

Warm, Cozy Bed Socks

Sunday last week, I started knitting a pair of Spiral Tube Socks and I finished them yesterday afternoon.

The colour of the socks in this photo is closer to their true colour than in the second photo. The lighting in the basement room I took the photos in isn't the best.

I’m so pleased with how quickly they worked up and with the way they turned out.  I was also pleased with how easily I was able to slip back into the rhythm of knitting in the round again as it had been about a year and a half since I’d done any.

I’ve decided that these will make the perfect bed socks for nights when I can’t seem to get warm no matter how many blankets I put on the bed.  (I think it’s one of those peri-menopausal things)

If you’ve ever wanted to learn to knit in the round and but didn’t feel ready to tackle knitting mittens and figuring out how to make the thumbs or socks where you have to turn the heel, this tube sock pattern would be a great one to try.  Don’t let the spiral pattern scare you away, it’s created by a simple knit 3, purl 3 repeat completed over four rows.  Then with each subsequent repeat, the pattern shifts over one stitch to create the spiral effect.  It’s that simple.

This post has been added to Sew Darn Crafty Party Week 52 over at Sew Many Ways

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And just a quick note:  I’ve really been having trouble getting my comments on to go through on the blogs that I regularly visit.  Occasionally I’ll get a comment to post but most times not.  I’m not sure if it’s the internet connection where we’re staying that is the problem but I hope to get back to commenting again soon.

Cookies for Two

Now that it’s just Dave and I at home most of the time, I’ve had to relearn how to cook and bake for two rather than for a family.

Dave loves cookies but a full batch is too much for him to eat before they start to go stale.   I could bake a full batch and then freeze the extras but then we don’t get to have that wonderful aroma of cookies baking.   Besides fresh baked cookies are more fun to eat so what I started to do (before we embarked on this prolonged moving adventure) was freeze the dough instead.

In order to give us a bit of variety, I make a full batch of his favourite chocolate chip cookie dough but before I add the chocolate chips, I divide the dough in half.  To one half, I add 1 c of chocolate chips and to the other half I add 1 c of dried cranberries.

Then I spoon the dough onto cookie sheets.

Because these are going into the freezer the cookies can be placed close together.

The cookie sheets are then put in the freezer until the cookies are frozen solid.

Remove the frozen cookie dough from the sheets.

Place in freezer bags and return to freezer.

When we have a craving for fresh baked cookies, I take out enough to fill one sheet pan.

The frozen cookie dough needs to bake for 2 to 3 minutes longer than indicated in the recipe.

Then we enjoy a yummy fresh baked treat.

WIP Wednesday – Knitting Socks

When we moved, all my sewing machines went into storage so I can’t take part in the regular WIP (Work-in-Progress) Wednesday which is only for sewing projects.

I was able to bring my knitting, crochet and embroidery supplies with us, so I thought I’d share what I’m working on this week.

Sunday evening, I cast on the stitches for the first of a pair of knitted spiral tube socks. (clicking on link will take you to the pattern)

It took a bit to get back in the rhythm of knitting in the round, but the first sock is working up quickly and I’ve only got a couple of more inches to complete in pattern before I can start decreasing to form the toe.

For those who might be wondering, the yarn I’m using is the wonderfully soft Bernat Satin.  It’s 100% acrylic worsted weight and is machine washable and dryable.

So far the Canadian winter has been comparatively mild, but should we have a sudden cold snap, it will be great to have a pair of warm, cozy hand knit socks to wear.

Playing Catch Up

Now that we’ve stopped traveling for a while, I’ve had a chance to go through some of my photo files and I realized that I had forgotten to post about some of the finished projects that I listed on the “2011- The Year of Getting Things Done” page.

First up, is the redwork tabletopper that I made for my parents’ 50^th Wedding Anniversary.

I started working on it in January of 2011 and finished towards the end of October.

I embroidered their names and the date of their anniversary in the center circle but have airbrushed that portion of the photo in order to maintain their privacy.

The kit that I used is actually a wall quilt but in thinking about my parent’s home, I couldn’t think of a wall where they would be able to display it, so I turned it into a table topper instead.

Kit details:  Wall Sampler Quilt by Jack Dempsey Needle Art

The quilting that is more visible on the back was done in simple straight line stitches with white thread used on top and gold thread used in the bobbin to match the gold of the dots on the red backing fabric.

Another finish for 2011 was the Christmas ornaments that I make for our children each year.  I purchased the kit a couple of years ago from Bird Brain Designs.

The kit had 6 different primitive angel patterns but by careful placement I was able to trace and embroider 9 angels on the muslin provided.  I did, however, need to use some fabric and batting from my stash to complete the extra three angels.

I saved out these four angels for ourselves.  Our children received one angel each and I kept one for our own tree.

The rest of the angels were given away as gifts.