Friday Thing

On our way to our Friday Thing we saw:

the hedgerow on the main road by our house in full leaf
magnolia blooms falling onto pavements
blossom covered trees
a lady in black and white kitten heels and a skirt which was black on the back but patterned black and white on the front
open fields with no crop
other fields full of bright yellow oil seed rape
the Ridgeway
pollarded trees that are now showing new orange-y leaved growth
a man on a bike arguing with a man in a car
a tiny little black lamb with its mummy ewe in a field

How to sew an easy headband

Big Mama Frog was asking for sewing inspiration so here’s a quick and easy thing to sew. This really can be done in 5 minutes including cutting and sewing so switch your machine on!

I can’t claim any credit for this one as it is something I found in the downloads section of Sewing Mamas but for those of you who don’t frequent such corners of the net I’m sharing it here. My apologies for the terrible lighting, creased fabric and terrible finger nails. It is hard to find a good hand model round these parts y’know.

You need two pieces of fabric and one piece of elastic

The big piece is 6″ x 13″
The small piece is 3″ x 11″
The elastic is 1″ wide and 7″ long

Fold both pieces in half longwise and using a 1/4 inch seam allowance sew along their long sides

When you get to the end of the first piece stop, lift your needle, lift the foot and pull the piece away from the needle without cutting the threads. Stick the other piece under the needle, drop the foot and carry on sewing.

When they are both sewn, just snip the thread that joins them.

Next, sew across the short end of the narrowest piece to help you turn it right side out.

Now get a pen or a stick or a toothbrush or something and push it into the closed end.

Keep pushing it until you can see the right side appearing on the end of the pen and you’ll be able to turn the strip fully right side out. Unpick the stitches across the end or just cut that bit off if you can’t be bothered.

Turn the wider bit right side out as well then wriggle them both about so that the seam is in the middle of each strip, not at the edge.

Thread the elastic through the narrow strip til you can see it at one end ….you’ll have to imagine that action bit….. but it will all look like this once it’s done

Now put the big piece right side up and lay the elastic bit right side down on it, right in the middle like this with the elastic only just inside the tube.

Fold fold the bottom of the big bit up over the elastic bit, and the top of the big bit down over the elastic bit, then stitch through all the layers. Don’t worry about sewing this neatly as all the threads and raw edges will be hidden.

Wriggle the elastic through to the other end and do the same folding and stitching so that you end up with something like this

Hold the elasticated part and pull the wider part round and you will have one of these. Ta Da!

See? It was easy. These make quick party gifts and you can sew a load of them all at once if you do the foot lifting thing. The measurements fit both Miss Froo who is four and Miss Amoo who is eight. If you think you need to make them longer, add an inch or so to the length of the large piece.

Ordinary

I have nothing exciting to say but I’ve not posted for so long that I thought I should probably say something.

We’ve been busy-ish here and there, a party one day, Nanny here for three days, bike rides another day, tidying up and cutting hair and sewing hair bands and lots of playing outside on bikes with the neighbours’ children.

So, the days have passed with little to show for them other than smiling faces and very dirty clothes. Kim has got me into Romancing the Ordinary and I am very contented as a result. If you haven’t got a copy, get over to Amazon and buy one for a penny. I’ve had to buy two as my Mum has ‘borrowed’ the first copy I bought as she was already three months into it by the time she went home last week.

I would show you pictures of this joy but I downloaded them this afternoon and deleted them off the camera just before the puter got cranky and died. I’m typing this on a ‘spare’ puter which is sadly without any if my files until I can reinstall them from backup tomorrow.