I haven’t sewn a lot this year so far. Fortunately, I had a free sewing workshop booked locally to give me a nudge to sew again, plus use up some scraps.
A local college to me had a couple of free sewing workshops this academic year. I love the opportunity to spend time in a learning environment with the inspiration of others around me. On top of that it is great from a space point of view. I live in a flat. I do have space to sew, but I also work from home, and don’t always feel like sewing. A change of scenery was lovely.
I did a workshop at the college (another free one) last Autumn/Winter to make a sewing machine cover/sewing machine mat (which is something I haven’t added to this blog but might soon!) and the weather that time was awful! This time, the sun was shining and it was a lovely relaxed atmosphere with other sewists.
Another advantage was my mum had given me a wheelie bag for my sewing machine, so it was much easier to wheel all my stuff to the classroom!
The workshop was focused on making a picnic blanket. The blanket consists of 16 squares sewn together then bordered with rectangular panels at the sides and smaller square pieces in the corners. A piece of low loft wadding and a solid backing piece (in my case, an old curtain) were then quilted in place. I used a decorative stitch on the machine to quilt in place. As my machine is fairly basic, I could not adjust the stitch length and I was a bit concerned that it might bunch up too much, but it turned out alright in the end.
Finally, the edges were enclosed with bias binding. The bias binding on mine was made from the backing fabric. It did not need to be cut on the bias as I was covering straight edges. However, I wanted the nice diagonal lines around the edging.
This make was made completely from scraps in my fabric stash. It was nice to do a project which used up some of it! I am a bit concerned about how fit for purpose it will be if the ground is a bit damp, but I’ve applied a bit of scotchgard to it to protect it a bit! I did have some ripstop fabric I could have used on the base, but it seemed a shame to cover up the curtain fabric base. Plus, it will probably be easier to wash it if it gets mucky!
