Applique at Make, Do and Mend

It’s taken me a few days to get around to writing this post, apologies if you’ve been waiting and wondering how it went.

It started with me trying to leave the house and negotiating 3 children, 2 of whom made it very clear the didn’t want me leave, one turned on the tears and tugged at my heart strings!  ‘I love you mummy and I just want you to stay’  so I made a speedy getaway (as Leah opened the letterbox and cried through that too) and left Tobi to enjoy the bedtime routine.  When I’ve gone to Make, Do and Mend before I’ve gone after their bedtime but as I was supposed to be helping this session I wanted to be there before it started.  Once I parked the car and paid £1.20 to park for 15 minutes (it was 17:45 and free parking starts at 18:00 but I wasn’t prepared to chance a parking fine so paid for an hour!) I then had to walk a short distance to the Phoenix and realised just how heavy my sewing machine is!  I’ve just been and put it on the scales and it weighs approximately 15 kgs!  It did however have lots of lovely comments and admiration throughout the evening!

Joe set the group up at the beginning of last year and every session is now booked up, so we had 30 or so people come along to have a go at a project of their own or to learn appliqué.  It’s one of those funny things that when you know how to do something it can seem quite simple and you wonder why someone else needs teaching.  Anyway mostly what I said was that it’s about sewing one piece of fabric onto another and it’s completely up to you how you do it, think about what you would like to do and have a go, that is possibly the best way to learn.

Despite being reminded to take the camera I forgot so here are some of the photo’s that Joe took during the evening.  What was fantastic was the way that everyone did their own thing, came up with their own idea and went for it.  Some did some hand sewing, others spent the evening cutting and piecing with the sewing to be done another day.

I did talk about some of the ‘extra’s’ that I sometimes use, bondaweb to hold the pieces in place before sewing.  I’ve also recently started using a stabiliser (when appliquing t-shirts) on the back of the main piece of fabric which just helps to stop any stretching and gives a great finish.

Anyway it was a great evening, if you fancy learning a new craft or want to sit and knit/sew/crochet etc then come along but don’t forget to book first!

Funnily enough when I got back in Tobi told me the children had all been fine, so I suppose one lesson I learnt is that I should go out more if I can tear myself away from my sewing or just take it with me!