A bit of sewing for a change

I don't do a lot of sewing, but sometimes Loving Hands is asked for sewn items and the challenge of making them appeals to me.

The Neonatal Sister at University Hospital Coventry and Warwick asked for some small drawstring bags  to hold memory items for bereaved parents.  Without the bags, parents would have to take their precious items home in a paper bag.  Among the fabric stash I found some Peter Rabbit fabric and a small piece with nursery animals on.  These two pieces made eight bags, which will be sent off later this week.  Other Loving Hands members have made some bags too, so hopefully we can keep the hospital supplied on a long term basis.  

I've also enjoyed myself making some hand puppets.  The charity Knit for Nowt supplies family puppets (which can be either sewn or knitted) to social workers and therapists for use with children.  The puppets have two faces, one happy and one sad, to enable children to express emotions that they may not otherwise be able to show.

So far I have made four puppets: Mum, Grandma, Girl and Boy.  Grandad is under construction, and Dad is at the cutting-out stage!

Can you spot the differences between the two photos???

Worry Monsters

In the world we live in, children sometimes have concerns and worries that make them anxious and stressed.  They can become fearful and obsessed with things that might happen but in reality are most unlikely to happen.  The Worry Monster is a soft toy with a zipped mouth that can 'eat' their worries if they either write them or draw them on paper and feed them to the monster, then firmly close the zip.

Knit for Nowt, the Yorkshire based charity that Loving Hands supports, has been asked for these worry monsters by people who work with children, so this week I had my first attempt at making them.

Meet Humpty.  He's made of fleece offcuts in green and purple, with a red pocket for a mouth, which can be firmly closed with a black zip.  His nose and eyes are buttons sourced from the Scrapstore (I especially like the nose button!), and his eyebrows make him look rather worried himself.  I called him Humpty because he reminded me of a stuffed toy of that name who featured in a long-running BBC children's programme called Play School. I remember watching it as a child, and also watching it with my own children twenty-odd years later.

 There was more fleece left, so he acquired a big brother, Dumpty.  I gave Dumpty a bow-tie made from one of my husband's discarded ties.  By placing his features a bit lower, he looks an altogether less stressed monster!

They will be going off to Knit for Nowt along with the dragon hand puppets.

Twiddling!

Last week a lady from the Alzheimer's Society came into the scrapstore.  Our local branch are preparing a display of 3000 knitted and crocheted forget-me-nots to go on Weston's pier during Dementia Action Week in May.  She was looking for something to use as a backing to display the flowers.

 We got talking, and I mentioned that I had made a couple of twiddle mats and a twiddle muff.  These are used by people with dementia to keep their fingers and hands busy and stop them picking at their clothes.  I offered to show her some, and asked for her input on whether I have got the activity level right.  So on Saturday I got the sewing machine and my box of bits out, and started twiddling.

These two are ones that I made a while ago:

The top one is rather 'loud' in that there are lots of different patterns and textures, but there are lots of things to discover, including the crocheted dog who lives in a pocket.  The fleece muff in the lower picture is very soft and comfortable to have over my hands, but the standard of sewing is sadly very poor because I got the dimensions and construction of the muff totally wrong - and on top, my sewing machine decided it didn't want to sew through several layers of fleece.

For the ones I made on Saturday, I used an old valanced bedspread that I had bought in the scrapstore.  I started with the intention of making a muff, but again, got the dimensions wrong, so I ended up with a long and narrow mat.

There are lots of things to fiddle with, including metal buttons on a thong and a large bead underneath the fleece heart on the right, which can be pushed around within the shape.

Not to be defeated, I cut out yet another piece of the quilted bedspread to make a muff.  More success this time, and as you can see, there are lots of things to twiddle with both inside and out.

I hope to get some feedback on these this week from the Alzheimer's Society, and then I can make some more.

Dusting off the sewing machine

What miserable weather we are having at present!  It has rained all day, and the temperature is 59 degrees - more like October than August.  Strangely on days like this I sometimes decide to do some sewing.  My mum was an excellent seamstress, and I grew up watching her at her sewing machine, making clothes for us and doing alterations to clothes for friends and neighbours.  I'm not in her league, but I can cope with simple patterns.

In my window box seat, where I keep my sewing stash, I found a couple of old shirts of my son's.  They were too good to throw out but no good for a charity shop because they were ripped on the sleeves.  I found a pattern for a pair of child's shorts, and repurposed a striped shirt into some cotton shorts to fit a four year old.  I enjoyed the pattern so much that I made a second pair out of a piece of blue fabric left over from a skirt I made a while back.

By now I was on a roll, so I pulled out my favourite girl's pattern and made a little tie-top dress.  The fabric comes from a duvet set I found in an RSPCA charity shop.  It is really versatile, with patterned and plain sections in pink and purple, hence the two-tone effect.

I've left the sewing machine out - I wonder whether I will feel like dong some more sewing tomorrow?

Chair rescue

We have two sons, and I've been feeling that they have been attached to the family home with invisible elastic, which has brought them back to live at home for extended periods of time when we might have thought they had fled the nest for good.  But they now both seem settled long term (the younger one is getting married in September), and neither has been back, except for long weekends and odd nights, for eighteen months now.

We have redecorated their bedrooms and now have a real guest room no longer filled with boy-type clutter.  OK, it does have some of my crafting bits, but they are easily tidied away into the empty wardrobe when visitors are due.  

I was about to throw away one of the boys' old office chairs - look at the picture below and see if you can guess why!

 I was assured that the hole in the fabric, and the larger hole in the foam underneath was not caused by picking at the chair, perish the thought, but rather by the seams of their jeans rubbing the seat.  Hmmm.....

As I had some fabric left over from the guest room curtains, I had a go at re-covering the chair.  I filled the foam hole with some quilt wadding, and then covered the back and seat of the chair with the curtain fabric.

Finally I made a loose cushion to go over the seat so that the hole and filling weren't noticeable when sitting in the chair.  Ta dah!  

A refurbished chair that actually matches the room's decor.  Now all I need to do is clear away the crafting bits.......

Open Day

We had our Scrapstore Open Day on Saturday, and very popular it was too.  Lots of families came through the door and purchased scrap for children to play with.  I embellished a few more bags with hot-air balloons (appropriate since I was using balloon fabric) like this one, which we sold for £2 to fill up with scrap.

The tiger who has hitched a lift is one of a range of very cute little finger puppets that we sell! I thought that a child might like to be able to put a tiny doll or lego character in the balloon basket. As the 'ropes' are made of elastic, it should help to keep the toy in place.

On the knitting front, I fancied making some bootees after seeing the ones that Una made.  My never-ending stash of 4 ply provided some contrasting yarns. When I have done a few more pairs I will send them to the Freedom from Fistula Foundation. 

 In the meantime, however, I am concentrating my stash-busting on making 6 inch blanket squares for Loving Hands to make into blankets which will go to Nepal via Operation Orphan.  It is good to feel that we can do something practical to help those poor people after their earthquakes.

A bit of sewing for a change

One of the things I love about being retired is having the time to do things I really want to do.  Being a teacher these days is all-consuming, with the need to be ready for Ofsted at a moment's notice and the need to document everything; an inspector once told me,"If it isn't on paper, it didn't happen" when I tried to explain how I gave informal one-to-one support to mentors but didn't have written records of precisely when and what had been discussed.  It made me realise that if I had sat in my office and written up fictitious meetings, instead of actually giving support where it was needed, Ofsted would have been well pleased!

Anyway, given I now have so much time, on Mondays I volunteer at our local Children's Scrapstore.  In case you're not aware of them, scrapstores are wonderful places where members can access a fascinating range of waste materials from businesses and industry, so that they can be re-used for children's play.

This is our local scrapstore, which is an offshoot of the larger Bristol Children's Scrapstore.  We have card, paper, fabric, leather, felt, netting, fur, foam, shells, paint.... and all sorts of interesting things.  Can you guess where the spotty bunting in the picture comes from?  It's the fabric left over when ironing board covers are cut out.  Isn't it fantastic?

Although we are a membership organisation, we are having an Open Day on Saturday 16 May when anyone can come and collect some scrap in return for a donation.  Recently we received some fabric bags as scrap, and so I have been decorating them with more scrap so people can see what can be done.  On Sunday I got my sewing machine out and made some kites with ripstop material (we have a hot-air balloon manufacturer who donates their offcuts) and some coloured elastic which was left over from making bra straps.  I rather like them!