Mamma look at me now

Good morning my lovely blogland friends.  I hope you are all safe and taking great care at this time with all that is C/virus related.  Things seem to be escalating at such a rate over the last week and countries being in lock down seems unbelievable. I really do hope that the UK doesn't have to take such measures for the sake of the general population as well as all the businesses that will be affected. I wanted to briefly mention it because it is so much part of our every day lives at the moment but unlike the media I don't want it to be the only topic of conversation in my blog space. 

I have always said that my one regret was that I hadn't had the time to learn how to use a sewing machine from my mother.   The most abiding memory of her was for her sewing and it was always her regret that she was unable to make my wedding dress as she had done for my older sisters as she had become too ill by that time.  I've mentioned many times the fact that both my mother and grandmother and all the women on the female line were seamstresses going back for generations and it was always something that I felt I should of been able to do.  Like a lot of us we don't ever see a time when our parents won't be here and that we will have many years in which to obtain their knowledge.  This year is will mark 30 years since my mother passed away and I decided that this should be the year that I face my nemesis. 

I recently joined a local crafting group. We are all of mixed abilities and all have expertise in different crafts. We are made up of knitters, crocheters, crossstitchers and machinists. You may recall at Christmas I got some of them sock knitting and with some success. 

Having discussed the sewing machine issue one of the ladies very kindly offered to lend me a sewing machine and told me to start by learning about the machine and going from the basics of threading up the machine and filling a bobbin.  I have been practicing away working out my tension and finally getting straight lines.  I won't show you the disasters that happened up to this stage.

I wanted to do something as a thank you for lending me a machine especially as she hasn't known me that long but has really made me feel part of the group and is very quickly becoming a very good friend.

I looked through my stash of cross stitch charts and came across this lovely chart that just about covers everything that is me when it comes to cross stitch but as you can see forms a sewing machine.  The chart is by Ursula Michael and is aptly named 'Let's Sew' and I have stitched it on 28ct evenweave.   Because it is made up mainly of words using back-stitch and very little in the way of cross stitches I didn't think it would take me too long.  

It was whilst I was busy beavering away cross stitching that I mentioned to my other lovely friend, who is also an expert in all things machine sewing, that I would quite like to make my cross stitch into a cushion so that it combined my first love with what I hoped would be my new love and she was more than happy to help me.

So one Saturday afternoon she set about helping me fulfill this ambition.  We added interfacing to the cross stitch in order to strengthen the even weave and to protect the back of the cross-stitch. 

I don't know what the technical name is for one of these but needless to say it came in very hand when cutting out and getting the size right to fit my cushion.  Unlike my mother and me she used a rotary cutter to cut the fabric. A rotary cutter is now on my list of equipment to purchase as I can't cut straight either so finding one these templates and a rotary cutter will definitely be the way to go for me. 

We had picked out fabric from her vast stash, something I am learning about too. I have a stash of wool, cross stitch charts and evenweave and every conceivable silk I may ever need but now I get to create another stash how exciting.  She found two pieces of fabric sewing machine related and went on to show me how to place and add a zip. 

and low and behold here is the end result.

I can't tell you how chuffed I was at being able to combine my love of cross-stitch with what I am hoping to be a new love of machine sewing. I am not quite at the making of reading cushions but I am getting to slowly understand the construction of things which is a vast improvement on where I have been for the last thirty years. 

So as the title this post would suggest.

MAMMA LOOK AT ME NOW 

MX