Do you ever need a project that is quick, easy and extremely gratifying? Yeah, me too. Especially just after Christmas when the weather is bleak and everything is just a bit flat.
I’m in a massive declutter mode at the moment. Stuff is being shed left, right and centre. Even my sewing supplies are being culled and sold for cold hard cash. One of the ‘casualties’ was the desk chair I used in my sewing space. Man, that thing was big! Every time I moved anywhere on it, I hit something. My room is too small for such a big black monstrous piece of furniture so I flogged it. Then promptly spent the money on a metre of fabric and some piping from Frumble. But before you wonder how on earth decluttering, stash included, equates to stash acquisition – there was a plan!
We have a number of steel legged, round topped stools from back in the days when Husband and I owned and ran a hire boatyard on the Norfolk Broads. When refurbishing one of the boats we had 6 of these stools left over and rather than bin them, they’ve followed us around ever since. They make great occasional ‘need extra’ seats. Since deciding to loose the monster chair I’d been using one of those stools to see how I’d get on with it in the sewing space. Quite simply I loved it, it fit under my table so could get out of the way completely, was the right height and generally perfect. Except for the ageing red velvet covering.
So, 1m of Alexander Henry’s ‘Home Sewing is Easy’ fabric and some kingfisher blue piping (£15 in total so I still had change from the sale of the chair!!) later and I had a new stool! I completely winged the whole process! I interfaced the fabric with some medium weight interfacing and about the only measuring I did was for the diameter of the top of the seat and the depth of it (which I then doubled and added a bit to make sure there would be enough to tuck underneath and staple down).
This used up less than 1/2m of the fabric, so what do I do with the rest? Pinterest to the rescue! My machine cover is a very robust solid cover. Great if I ever want to move it anywhere, rubbish if I want to protect my machine whilst leaving the cables attached. Sewing Machine cover it was.
I used this tutorial from spoolsewing.com I adjusted the measurements a little to make sure it would cover my machine. This took no time to make though, even with the addition of the binding. I followed the construction steps in the PDF but with the addition of the piping what I should have done was: Attach piping to front & back panel. Sew end panels to top panel. Sew front panel to top/side piece. Sew back panel to top/side piece.
The reason I say this is the method outlined by Spool works perfectly if you don’t have inflexible, lumpy piping to negotiate that makes getting into the top corners a complete PITA. I ended up finishing that bit by hand.
I’m glad I added the piping though as it gives the cover a bit of structure that it wouldn’t otherwise have. You could so easily go fancy pants on this and interface the fabric, line it, quilt it, add pockets… I just wanted something fun and bright too keep the dust off! I’ve used up that metre now so poor old overlocker is going to have to wait until I actually stop being so precious about my dress length of this fabric and make a dress out of it! If she’s lucky there’ll be enough left over to make her a cover too…
Vicki Kate Makes 