Cutting a straight edge on fabric

Been making curtains this week – for my sister’s new (secondhand) caravan. We got some really nice flowery fabric in the style of Cath Kidson as my sis wants to do out the whole ‘van in floral vintage style. The fabric is from Abakhan in Liverpool and is incredibly wide – it’s the widest I’ve ever worked with at 6 foot! The pattern repeat is quite small so it’s made it fairly simple to match up a pair of curtains.

Red roses on blue fabric

The pretty roses on the fabric

One major problem I have when using patterned fabric is how to cut straight edges so that the pattern doesnt go wonky across the curtain. With rotary cutters and a long ruler it’s easy to cut a neat straight line but it could be a straight line which doesn’t follow the straight grain of the fabric and hence the pattern ends up wonky!

I thought I’d describe how I make sure my curtains are properly squared in case anyone else out there has been wondering how to do it, especially when there is no selvedge as a starting point!

Firstly inspect your fabric for some nice frayed ends – you might need to pull a bit to get hold of an end but tweezers come in handy for this bit!

Floral fabric with frayed ends

Nice easy to grab strands!

Floral fabric

See the strand coming out

Floral fabric

Strand removed

90degrees lines on fBric

Two strands removed to form two cutting lines at 90 degrees to each other

So with a bit of gentle pulling of one or two strands of fabric you can pull them straight out and leave a blank line – it’s a bit like drawing up curtains – pull gently and then smooth out the fabric and pull again till the strand comes right out.

As you can see above once you have pulled a vertical and horizontal thread out you have two perfect lines to cut along!

Once you have your perfectly aligned cut fabric you can move onto hemming! My Wonderclips come in very handy here as they’re much easier to use than pins – for a start they don’t hurt you!

Wonder clips on fabric

Keeping the hem in place with Wonder-clips

So that was my week – and will be more of the same next week as I haven’t finished them all yet! Hopefully I can take a picture of the caravan all decked out soon!

Linking up with Handmade Monday again this week 😀

 

HILLARYS CRAFT COMPETITION

Exciting!!  Some time ago I was invited to take part in the Hillarys Craft Competition again! I took part last year too – you can read about my entry here.

First you have to select your fabric, I chose the Daisy Pistachio, It was quite hard to decide what to make as I really wanted to incorporate the reverse side into my design. I spent quite a while thinking about what would be useful at this time of year, ie summer! I really love taking lunch out into the countryside but one thing which always bothers me is having to eat lunch on dirty picnic tables and how to keep crisps from blowing away and fruit from rolling away on our typical British summer day and our ‘rustic’ ie wobbly countryside picnic tables!

Daisy fabric

My daisy fabricIt’s a very silky, tactile fabric and the reverse side is pretty cool too!

Daisy fabric

The reverse side of the Daisy Pistachio fabric choice

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So here is my idea using some hessian I already had!   I have made picnic mats for me and my husband and think I can get about 3 or 4 more out of the Daisy fabric, just need more hessian or any similar fabric

Picnic mat

Finished Picnic Mat!

I cut two pieces of hessian to make fairly large sized placemats. The size is completely up to whatever you feel is right for you and your family.

I thought the reverse side would make a good pocket for the cutlery !

Fabric Pocket for picnic mat

Pocket pinned and waiting to be sewed in position

To get round the food blowing/rolling away idea I made a fabric bowl from an idea from my Patchwork class teacher.  It’s a very simple and quick way to make a pretty fabric container.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You put a large circular object on your fabric and draw round it.  I used the lid of my sewing box!

Circle template for fabric

Lid of my sewing box

Fabric bowl being made

Gathering the sides of the bowl up with tacking stitches

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can line the bowl and even use interfacing to stiffen the fabric but with this fabric there was no need to interface and I wanted the cool lining on show!

A quick round of large tacking stitches are sewn round the edge of the fabric and then drawn up (like you do with curtains) and it magically brings up the circle into a bowl shape!I     To keep the shape and size I pinned the gathers and then cut a 4inch strip of the fabric to bind the top.  As it is a curved edge to bind I cut the fabric at a 45 degree angle using my 6×12 inch ruler.  If you are unsure about binding there are so many tutorials to google I haven’t gone into detail for this bit.

You do need to keep the gathers in place with pins or clips whilst you get the binding into position.

Binding fabric

Wonder clips are great for keeping thick fabric in place instead of pins!

 

Place the two pieces of hessian right sides together with the cutlery pocket and bowl in the middle

Place the two pieces of hessian right sides together with the cutlery pocket and bowl in the middle

Completing the mat is just like any other two sided mat or table runner – place right sides together and sew all round the edges and then turn right sides out through the little gap you remembered to leave on one side! I left about a 6 inch gap to ensure I could get the bowl through!

 

If you want to make a tie for keeping the mat neatly rolled up then make this from a 3 or 4 inch wide strip of fabric.  Folding each side into the middle and then folding the whole thing in half lengthwise so that there are no raw edges on show.   Sew it lengthwise and then  fold it in half and  insert it between  the two pieces of hessian at the side of the bowl.  The folded edge goes in the seam with the two lengths of the tie laying towards the middle of the mat.

Making bias binding

Folding the 3 inch strip sides inwards then in half lengthwise to make a tie strip.  No need to iron it with this pliable fabric!

If everything has worked you should have a two sided mat sewn together with your cutlery pocket and bowl on the top and you ties at one side!

Picnic mat and cutlery!

Picnic mat ready for use – no need to get your lunch near that messy table!

 

Picnic mat on table

Ready for lunch!

Picnic mat

Finished Picnic Mat!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Picnic mat food bowl

The bowl

Picnic mat

Squashing the bowl prior to rolling up the mat!

Rolled up picnic mat

Rolled up with cutlery and bowl inside

Nifty eh? 😃

All I need now is some warm weather!

To check out the other entries either click the Hillarys Craft Competition link or go to Pinterest and check out the board!

 

Baby Bunting and paraphanalia!!

Gosh been a busy couple of weeks!

This is is why:

4 Weeks to go!

4 Weeks to go!

new granddaughter will be here soon!

We we had the baby shower a couple of week’s ago for which I made some baby bunting!

Pink baby bunting

The bunting on the wall

I had fun making this little pram for one of the flags!

Pink pram bunting

The little pram I made!

we had cake, coffee and chat! A lovely day with lovely family and friends!

Now I am hard at work trying to recreate the ungirly black cabriofix car seat part into prettiness! It’s quite fiddly!

Cabriofix car seat new cover

The car seat fixing thing!

think I’ve nearly cracked it – just need to sew the binding then arrange the pieces in the right place and bind both together! Sounds easy when I type it anyway! 😀  So much paraphanalia with babies!

So that’s been my recent work   – next is the Hillary’s Blinds Competition and here is first glimpse of my fabric!

Daisy fabric

My daisy fabric

Well now I’m off to link up with Handmade Monday. Next post will reveal what I have made with my competition fabric!!!