saturday afternoon sewing

I finally took some time out again to sew. I was feeling the pressure of having to give up my temporary 'sewing room' I guess. So, I set out to make a Tissue Box Cover.

I tried cutting out the pieces several times, and had some difficulties with being able to have my cutting wheel actually follow the edge of the ruler I was using, and on top of that, also having the ruler slip. My math skills also seem to have been left somewhere in my past or perhaps it was my ruler reading skills. I cut the pieces out the equivalent of twice before I had all the ones I needed. Sigh.

This heap is all the pieces that I screwed up. It's also the shell of the first one that I sewed together, which ended up not fitting over the box. I'm really not sure where that went wrong, but let's say it had something to do with giving myself skinny 1/4" seam allowances and then sewing fat 1/4" seam allowances. I only reached this conclusion after I had Michael check my measurements, since I was thinking for how badly it fit, I must have measured something wrong, but no, he agreed with my measurements.

Needless to say, when something is too small, it's tough to salvage. So, I went back to the cutting mat, this time feeling like I had at least mastered the use of my cutting wheel, and got all the pieces I needed on the first try. I decided to go for 1/2" seam allowances this time. I sewed somewhere between 1/4"and 1/2" seam allowances, and finally came up with a cover that fit!

This is it's new home in my book shelf!

Looks great on my newly organized bookshelf, I think!