Sewing for Sanity - TGIFF

 I definitely sew for sanity. A little bit of sewing makes me calmer, happier and a better mum. I love being a mum, but let’s be honest, at the end of the day it’s very hard to say “Look what I accomplished!”. Because the house that you cleaned, will not look like it (not if you have little tearaways like I do), the laundry you have done – well there’s more of it for tomorrow, the parenting you have done, well maybe you can reap the rewards from that in about 18 years.

So at least with sewing, I can make something (something pretty even!) and say – look! I’m creative and clever and I –made- something that will last longer than 5 seconds! And if I’m lucky, it might even last 5 minutes before having grubby childsized finger prints on it.

In honour of all that, here’s my finished little mini that sums up all those thoughts in one little phrase.



Last you saw, I was in a dilemma over the binding. Thanks for all the fab input. In an ideal world, I would have ducked out to my nearest shop and picked up a stripey fabric (or at least stolen some from Jane’s stash) but rarely do things happen like that! So I went with what I had so I could finish it up. I like it. I think it brings it all together nicely.

So how did I create this masterpiece? I used PicMonkey for the words. I typed up the phrase and played with the fonts til I found one I liked, then printed it out. Bit of fusible web, and a whole lot of itty bitty cutting out, and I had my letters. It took me awhile to cut them out – which is why I didn’t cut the insides of the letters. That sounded like too much hard work. I FMQ’d the letters on with black thread. Messy, but I don’t mind.

Bit of Lush Running Stitch and some Timeless Treasures Keep Calm fabric for the corners, a bit of brave loopy loop FMQing and I was done! Until the binding.



You know I like to be honest about my sewing, so here goes. I loved making this mini. Right up until the binding. Then it made me:



Wish I was kidding. I had the bright idea to try something new, something bold, something zig zag! Apparently my sewing machine does not like zig zag. My binding started looking like this:



But did I stop after the first few inches of uneven zig zag? Noooo. Because surely that won’t be noticeable and it’s just a mini for me after all. So I did the whole thing. Smart. Especially when I turned it over with a bit of a grimace and discovered this:



Bit of a grimace turned into a monster scowling frown. What was supposed to be my sanity saver was rapidly becoming crazy inducing. Plenty of unpicking, a bit of resewing and the binding is on with my usual straight stitch. It is not my best attempt at binding but the thing is on and I’m calling this done.

Look, I even sticky taped it on my wall in my sewing room (don’t tell the landlord) for the sake of a photo! This is what it would look like if I was allowed to put hooks in the wall to hang things up! (Don’t worry, no paint was harmed in the making of this photo – sticky tape was quickly removed before any damage was done).



And in the theme of keeping it real, I’m kidding if I pretend my sewing desk EVER looks like this. See that little bit of mess creeping in the right hand corner? It actually looks like this:



But hey, I can work in this kind of chaos. I can even create pretty things. I can say at the end of the day “Look, I made something fabulous” and feel a little bit productive. That’s what counts in my book.

Linking up with TGIFF which is over at Quilt Matters with M-R this week. So got something that saved your sanity this week or perhaps induced a bit of crazy? Share your finished project during OctoberQuest for a chance to win a prize!



PS. Talking of prizes – there’s a little giveaway happening on my last post – pop over and check it out