Domestic Goddess or double square bear?

Recently, posting yet another living-room-made sewing project to my Crafty Homemaking blog I was struck by how much my back ached. From sewing, you understand, not late nights in noisy pubs, sleeping rough under the stars or even picking up infant sproglets. No, from sewing.

See, I don't have children. Nor do I live in a desirable enough area to happily own a pet without the worry of it being stolen/ kicked at/ urinated against (welcome to Newquay). My job is quite demanding, so how should I spend my down-time when the sun is neither out, nor brightening up?

The age-old art of the seamstress. It started out of necessity - sewing blinds and curtains for about a thousand staring windows in my boyfriends former-bachelor-pad-turned-love-or-lets-face-it-in-those-days-lust-nest.

Curtains turned to cushions - that's still acceptable, right? Cushions turned into felt hanging mobiles and perhaps the odd garmet for godchildren - still socially acceptable when you're helping to clothe naked children, yes?

And then my brother, goddamn him, went and announced that I'm soon to be an aunt. Well something took over. A friend of mine happened to show me a 1970s patchwork book she'd found and I couldn't be stopped.

My sewing machine used to get so dusty that said brother had to whittle me a sewing box for my 30th birthday last year. Now the poor thing's on its last legs. Every time I open the box I can hear it groan. 'Come on you loser', it's telling me. 'Get a bloody life'.

But I can't. This is the life of a 30 something career woman. I know I've probably stepped straight out of the 1800s, but even so, back then it was a social acceptance. Nowadays you feel you should keep such a habit out of the public eye - knitting from behind bus stops, embroidering confined to your bedroom with the (home-made) curtains firmly shut.

Perhaps I should just give in to being 'Desperate Housewife' Bree, duster in hand, smoothing down my half-apron. And before you ask, yeah, I've made one of those too....

How to make a baby's patchwork quilt

To make a baby's patchwork quilt you will need some time, some patience and some more time. And a bit more patience.

This is an endurance project - you're not going to get this finished in a day, probably not in a week. But when it's finished you will be left with a piece of art which will see a child through from baby to toddler through his or her most formative years - so let's make it a good one!
The finished quilt will measure 90cm long by 70cm wide. The patchwork made of of triangles and hexagons is called baby block.

First thing's first, you will need:
3 different colours, light, medium and dark - to be sure, get a metre sq of each fabric.
Backing material - 92cm x 72 cm
Cotton wadding - 92cm x 72cm
An equilateral diamond shape card with 6cm sides plus a 1cm seam allowance (you can buy these as templates - it has to be accurate!)

Cut out plenty of diamond shapes in each of your three colour materials:

Using a 1cm seam sew the backs of three diamonds together to form a hexagon

Once you have several of these, start to join the hexagons together:
It will look like this on the back:
Once you have a shape that is roughly 80cm x 60cm, stop:
Now you need to create a 5cm boarder out of dark and medium coloured fabric - 3cm light sandwiched between two 1cm dark strips (each with a 1cm seam allowance)

Sew the boarder to your hexagons, then sandwich the wadding between your patchwork and backing fabric and sew together with a 1cm seam. You're back hurts, your eyes are bloodshot and you've got pins and cotton all over the floor, I know. But just look at what you're left with:

How to make a pleat skirt

Not to be worn on a Cornish windy day (of which we have many) this gorgeous pleat skirt is actually a doodle to sew. Stick with me. This is what you'll end up with:


You will need:
Pretty skirt material and matching cotton thread: width 3 x your waist (size 12 = 135cm) height = 50cm
Matching bias binding: 2 x width of waist (90cm)
Matching zip: 20cm

Lay out your material and every 12 cm overlap a 4cm section and pin in place - that will leave you with 8cm, then a 2cm pleat, 8cm then a 2 cm pleat etc. Try it for size around your waist and adjust as necessary.

Sew these pleats in place along the top of the fabric horizontally, and then vertically 8cm down each pleat.

Fold in half right side to right side, and seam together to make a tube - sewing in the zip at the top. Then sew your bias binding along the top of your skirt to hide your top seam:






Hem the bottom of the skirt:


Sew a hook and eye to the top of the zip on the underside:


Et voila - your very own pleat skirt.