Last time I blogged about the oya I made: one for myself, and one for Bonnie, the office manager at the wellness clinic I go to.
Truth is, those weren’t the only items I had to make last weekend. The wedding shower for my youngest brother’s wedding was on the Sunday, and I wanted to make furoshiki for the shower gift, and cushion covers for the cushions I was giving them. The cushions weren’t on the registry, but my new sister-in-law mentioned she liked some cushions my mum had made, and it just so happened I knew that the fabric came from IKEA. Turns out, once I got there, I discovered the cushions had as well, which was convenient.
Sewing is problematic at my place. I do have an en suite washer and dryer in the condo, but even with the ventilation fan on, the dryer can take a long time. Basically I only run it when I absolutely have to, and only then on the weekends. Then pressing lengths of fabric in a small apartment can be challenging as well, just because it’s hard to figure out where to put the ironing board. Usually I use a little table-top ironing board, even if that means I need to press fabric lengths in two passes.
Then once all of that is done, there’s the cutting and the sewing to do. I am not good at sewing. Usually I specify that I’m not good at cutting, but this last session made me realise I don’t sew very well either. Also, my sewing machine chose this particular time to have the needle tension go all wonky. I should have had it set correctly already (it’s always been fine before). Instead, I had to crank it to maximum tension to get barely acceptable stitches. And then the thread kept on breaking. Argh.
Nevertheless, when all was said and done I had two cushions like the one shown above, and two furoshiki, which is how many it took to wrap the gift in its large cardboard box:
If you look closely (although I’d rather you didn’t), you’ll see both the top-stitching and the seams are crooked. Sigh. Oh well, it’s serviceable. I do like the red back fabric with the turquoise bird fabric.
I didn’t convince the cushions (four, two handmade covers, two store-bought contrasting ones) to fit in the furoshiki with the box, so I just stuffed those in a reusable shopping bag (also IKEA) and called it a day. Turns out the shopping bag came in handy for packing all the gifts into the car.
I have fabric to make myself two blouses this autumn, but the sewing machine and its tendency to break thread is making me nervous. I might have to see about getting it adjusted before I let it near the cotton voile I got.