The Rustic Domestic Angel - Christmas Tutorial no 14

I know how much time is spent in the kitchen before, during and after Christmas... so here she is, your very own Angel of Domesticity, complete with her apron and ready to go.  And if you want to know her name - it's Marion, and she loves a little bit of Welsh rough!

You will need:

A cup of black tea (the sacrifices I make for you readers as a seasoned tea loather!)

A 12” square of Calico

A 6” x 12” piece of cotton ticking and the same again of gingham

6” x 6” wadding

Greaseproof paper

Sewing machine

Soft stuffing, eg Kapok

A ruler, a water glass and pens

Scrap of wool

Crewel needle

Scissors including pinking shears

Iron and ironing board

Twigs

Hairy string

First make your cup of black tea, and place it in a contained where you can put in your calico and ticking.  The longer you leave it in there, the more aged your angel will look (aged but not drudge like).  Let the fabric dry.

While this is happening, we will make our template for the body using the greaseproof paper for our patterns, take a water glass and draw round it (I used one with a 3” diameter) ½ “ below it, draw a rectangle of 3½” x 4” – this will be your body.

For the wings, if you are artistic draw them freehand, if you like me were told that perhaps art was not the O level for you, then look in your craft books – you know the ones that you buy in September when you know you will simply make everything for Christmas – there will be a shed load of wings for you to choose from!

Iron your fabrics and pin out the pattern pieces, cut two bodies in calico, two sets of wings in the ticking and one set in wadding.

Honestly... this is not a Simpsons Re-run!

Sew the body together  using a ¼” seam allowance, leaving a hole at the base. * Around the top of the head and anywhere that has a curve, cut little triangle with the points almost at your running stitch as this will ease the fabric and give you a smoother finish.  Now put the stuffing into the angel.

Whip stitch the opening closed (this is overstitching with attitude) when you are happy with the shape of your body.  You are now going to use the twigs as arms and legs, attach these to the back of the body by overstitching onto the fabric where legs and arms would sit.  

However, I had another idea, if you have smalls in your house* and are worried that they might injure themselves on the twigs take a length of hairy string and run it through the top of the body for the arms and loop it through your base opening for legs.  Make a knot on each piece of string to represent knees, ankles, elbows and wrists.

To make the hair, take your wool and with the crewel needle sew French knots from half way up the face just below the seam of the head and the go back on the other side of the head in between the first row of French knots.  You are now going to make her lustrous locks by taking a piece of cardboard and winding the wool around the cardboard, go to the top and sew over three pieces of wool then back under two, continue to do this until you reach the end of the “hair”, now be brave and cut along the bottom of the wool.  You now have an angel’s wig!  Pin this on the back of the head and sew it in place, trim as necessary.

Draw on your face, two dots for eyes (in the middle of the face), two dots for the nose, a broad smile and I used a pink eye shadow to create the cherubic cheeks.

Now think back to how you made dresses for your dolls when you were little... if like me you were not Coco Chanel or Vera Wang, try this.  Draw a rectangle 9” across by 6” down on your greaseproof paper, mark the paper an inch down and draw a line 2” in and then down to the base.  Fold the pattern in half and curve the line around the under arm of the dress.  Make a gentle curve from about 1.5” to create the neckline.

Pin this out on your gingham fabric, cut out two pieces and sew together using ¼” seam allowance, cut the hem and sleeves with pinking shears.  Slip the dress over the angel’s head... the dress is rather mahoosive, isn’t it?  You are now a window dresser, make a fold at the back of the dress and catch it with a couple of stitches.  

Errr... the neckline looks rather grim, so we will gather it, make a knot at the end of a double thread and stitch a line of running stitch across the neckline, pull it tight to make a neckline gather, sew it off firmly.

Make a wing sandwich, with ticking, wadding and ticking, to make it look really homemade I stitched the wings together using blanket stich, you could use your machine to do this with a running or embroidery stitch. Turn the angel over and pin the wings onto the dress and body and sew firmly onto the angel.

Use two short lengths of string as bows on each sleeve.

Cut out a piece of fabric, 6” x 4”, stitch both sides, then fold over the top and fold over 5/8”, then pink the base of the apron.  Run a piece of string through the casement you have created at the top of the apron, ruche the apron and tie it up at the back of the angel.

Now pop her on a shelf to watch over you while you work! 


You now need to take a look at Wendy's Handmade Monday and see what all the other bloggers have been up to over the past week!

Summer Beach Hut for Sally - Cushion Tutorial

As you may realise I live by the seaside and like to take inspiration from what is going on around me for my applique cushions, so I did not even have to walk to the beach but found inspiration while drinking coffee from one of my lovely bone china mugs which are based on local views created by Howard Robinson, a renowned local artist.

Tutorial for the cushion

Materials

Cushion pad - Merrick and Day are great stockists
Main fabric - linen, cotton, ticking, calico
Applique fabric - scraps from previous projects, I find cottons work best
Sewing Cottons
Sewing Machine
Scissors and/or rotary cutter and mat
Iron on fusible bonding
Grease proof paper
Iron and ironing board
A saucer
Air erasable marker pen

In the famous words of Mrs Beeton, first choose your cushion, whether it be square or oblong, the choice is entirely yours... I am working with an oblong cushion pad which is 23" x 15".

Firstly, iron your main fabric, remember your iron is your very best friend when you are sewing.  Normal seam allowances are 5/8" but I am going to be really generous and give myself an inch, so I will need to cut out a piece of fabric which is 25"x17" and set it aside.  If you are using cotton ticking, it loves nothing better than to unravel, so cut it out with pinking shears or a pinking blade.

Now is your chance to literally go back to the drawing board, I am the least artistic person you will meet so a beach hut design is ideal as it is made up of squares, triangles and rectangles/oblongs.  You are now going to map these out on your greaseproof paper!  I used my cutting mat and ruler to draw out my pattern - this pic is drawn out on normal paper so you can read the dimensions.
Hut = Square 3 1/4" x 3 1/4" with a triangle rising 1 3/8" at the apex drawn on top
Door = Oblong 2.5" x 1.5" with a triangle rising to 3/4" at the apex drawn on top
Eaves = Oblong 3" x 3/4"

Cut out your design, pin it on your fabric scraps and cut it out carefully... all of the designs that we have chosen are symetrical so we do not have to worry about cutting out an item back to front. Trace around you pattern piece on the paper side of your iron-on fusible webbing.

Now place out your applique pieces on you fabric to see what works best for you, I have found that odd numbers of items work best, a bit like when you are gardening!

When you are happy that everything is in its place, peel off the paper from the fusible bonding, place it on the back of the fabric and then put it onto your cushion front and iron firmly into place, the bonding will give weight and strength to your fabric pieces. Do all the huts first and then the doors.

Your next step is to decide which stitch you will use to hold you pieces to the cushion front, you can use running stitch, satin stitch, blanket stitch, in fact let your imagination run riot and use any of the embroidery stitches your machine has - if this is the first time you have done this, have a little practice on some spare fabric, far better to make your mistakes where you will not see them!  I have used satin stitch for the beach hut with two complementary cottons and a running stitch for the bunting flags.

You only need to sew up the walls and base of the beach hut and all around the door.  Leave the roof unsewn as you will cover that with the eaves.

Next we will attach the eaves, overlay the oblongs to make a right angle which you overlay on the roof, start on the inside left hand side and work around the L hand side and then down the R hand side so that you will be able to complete it in one continuous piece of sewing.

Frankly, five beach huts look a little bit boring, so I thought that bunting would lift the cushion a little more.  Grab your saucer and place the edge under the edges of your eaves and draw from one to the other using the edge of the saucer as your guide.  This will be the "string" for your bunting, sew along your guideline with  a suitable stitch, I used satin stitch in lilac as I wanted to use a purple polka dot cotton for my bunting.

Cut out an oblong of 6" x 3/4", now fold the left hand corner over to the right side and cut out across the oblong, you have a square, fold this in half and you have a triangle, which becomes your bunting flag.  Repeat this until you have enough pennants to hang between your huts.  Now repeat this with your fusible bonding and iron the bonding and triangles in place.  I used a running stitch to hold the flags in place as I felt that the satin stitch looked too heavy.

Now we are going to make the back of our cushion, you need to decide how you want to close your cushion,  you could use, a simple envelope close, zip, tapes or buttons and whether you want it to close centrally or off-centre.  As this is quite a substantially sized cushion, I am going to use some large wooden buttons to ensure it closes firmly and to make it a little more interesting, it is going to close off-centre.

For my cushion, I will need to cut piece of fabric 31" x 17", this is 6" wider than the cushion front, as we will need to fold fabric over to take the buttonhole and to sew on the button, so cut the fabric so one piece is 11" wide and the other is 20" wide... don't forget to use your pinking shears to prevent fraying. Turn over a 1/4" seam down the 17" length of one side of each piece of fabric.

Now, you need to take the wider piece of fabric, fold over each seamed piece so that 2 3/4" is underneath and iron it into place.   Next, decide how many buttons and where you will place them, I am using two, so I place mine a third of the way down from the top and a third of the way from the bottom.

As you can see these buttons are large and my automatic buttonholer would not take them, so I need to mark the length of the buttonhole, you can use chalk, your pen or pins to do this.  

Change your machine foot to the buttonhole foot and if this is the first time you are doing a buttonhole take the time to do a little practice on a spare piece of fabric.  It will create the lower bar first, then run up the left hand side of the buttonhole, then the bar across the top and then back down the right hand side. Then using a sharp pair of scissors cut between the two sides of the buttonhole.

With the right sides of your fabric together, place the wider piece down first, as you will need the buttonholes to lie on top when you turn the cushion out.  As we have used a striped fabric, match the stripes together, we have a generous amount of fabric to ensure that this happens and that you get a really professional result when you finish.  Pin the fabric together and do the same with shorter width, matching the stripes again and laying it over the fabric which contains the buttonholes (four layers of fabric).

Sew around the cushion cover.  Before you turn the cushion cover out, go to each corner and cut off the corners above your seam, so that you will not have a bulk of fabric lying there and then you will get a lovely sharp corner. Turn the cushion out, sew your button in place and then insert your cushion pad.

You have now finished your cushion, ready for that Summer seaside look.

This cushion now lives with my friend Sally to remind her of her week spent on hols down in Cornwall.

And here are a selection of other Summer and seaside ideas, each of them are based on simple shapes of squares, triangles and oblongs/rectangles which are available in my Etsy Shop.

Please don't forget that it is also Handmade Monday, so go and take a look at what everyone has been up to over the past week... I see that Wendy, who hosts this is so darned organised that she is already making Christmas items!  Trust me to be behind...