Category: Tutorials

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Coniston Cutting Mat Bag

Coniston Cutting Mat Bag

We love Bev Mayo’s handy cutting mat bag, and so do our customers! The log cabin design is easy to master with Bev’s helpful YouTube tutorials, and the padding ensures your cutting mat travels well and is protected. Why not get prepared for when both you and your craft supplies can hit the road again!

The bag will fit a 24” x 18” cutting mat with the actual size of the bag being 20” x 24” (51cm x 60cm).  There is room to spare for your cutting ruler and other items so creating patchwork on the move is made a little easier, and you can easily store all your tools together.  The log cabin pattern (and the rest of the bag) is made from four light tone and four dark tone fabrics. You can use your favourite colour scheme – purple and teal are very popular choices. This is also the perfect project to use up your scraps.

Here’s what you’ll need:

25cm of three light tone fabrics

1m of another light tone fabric

25cm of two dark toned fabrics

50cm of two more dark toned fabrics

2 pieces of calico (25″ x 21″)

2 pieces of wadding (25″ x 21″)

2 small pieces of wadding (2″ x 37″)

These are some of our collections that have been used to create this bag by our customers –

Benartex Dragonfly Dance
Kanvas Studios Pansy Noir
Fabric Palette Blue/Green
Pandora from Quilting Treasures
Fish Hope

plus our range of Jospehine Wall fabrics would work look amazing 😀

Don’t forget to watch the three tutorial videos that accompany this pattern, especially if there are any techniques that you haven’t practised before. You can find all three below. Happy Crafting!

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My Darn Socks – a quick tutorial

I’m on a mission to improve my ‘make do and mend’ skills, primarily because I have some really lovely bamboo socks and also some yoga toe socks, neither of which are cheap so I have taught myself the diminishing skill of darning and thought you might want to give it a try!

Note: I’ve used contrasting thread to make the process clearer. By matching your thread to your sock the darn will almost vanish. Leftover yarn works well, or you can use stranded cotton for thinner socks.

Get a nice long darning needle – a mixed pack is good for different thread thicknesses and lengths. Stretch your sock over a darning mushroom to help get your tension right and make a circle of running stitches around the worn area. Pull in gently but not enough to make puckers around the damaged area. Secure your thread with several stitches on top of each other.

Begin to sew large ladder stitches across the hole to form the warp threads.

Turn back and add a further warp thread between every one of the gaps created earlier. Secure your thread. This is where I changed colour – if you want an interesting darn or find it easier to learn with two colours then change colour now.

Starting at the top of the warp threads, begin to weave across the weft threads. Go over one thread and under the next until you reach the other side. Make a small stitch at the end in line with your running stitches. Work back across the threads in the opposite direction, reversing the over and under weave. Continue in this way, pulling the threads reasonably taut across the mushroom as you go.

Gently push your weft threads to the top as you work so you can fill as much available space with thread for a good dense fabric. When you’ve completely filled your darned area then secure your thread. Work it through on the reverse of your fabric before trimming it off.

by Purple Boots

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Pilot’s New Pintor Paint Pens

We’ve recently got a whole range of amazing new pens in the shop, and we’ve had a lot of fun experimenting! Pilot Pintor water based paint pens are so versatile and can be applied to almost any surface they come in two tip sizes: medium and fine, and a wide range of 24 vibrant colours including metallic and pastel shades.

Basics:

  • To prime the tip, shake the pen about 20 times prior to use (with the cap on firmly) and then press the tip of the pen 3-4 times onto paper until the ink flows.
  • These pens are not refillable
  • Store pen with tip facing upwards
  • To avoid getting paint on your iron whilst fixing the designs (for some materials see reverse), use a scrap piece of fabric OR grease proof paper between the iron and your creation.
  • We have found that the Black pen tends to spread more than the other colours. The metallic range of pens does appear to spread the least.

Drawing on different materials:

Porcelain/ Glass & Frosted Glass – for best results apply 2 coats; allow the first coat to dry before applying the second. Once you have completed the design put the item in the oven at 160C for 50 minutes. Best compatibility with metallic colours.

100% Cotton/ Linen– apply 1 coat smoothly, Iron at low temperature without steam to fix the design. The ink will sink in easily and will spread because of the fabrics fibres. However we at Tudor Rose Patchwork have had great success applying this product to cotton and other fabrics. We do advise using a piece of paper behind the fabric to ensure you do not mark any other surfaces.

Polyester/ Satin Fabric– apply 1 coat smoothly. The ink will sink in easily and will spread because of the fabrics fibres. We at Tudor Rose Patchwork have found that on this fabric the ink tends to spread more than with other fabrics. We do advise using a piece of paper behind the fabric to ensure you do not mark any other surfaces.

Glitter Film – These pens can be used in conjunction with the Glitter film range. Apply 1 coat and allow to dry on its own for a few minutes before re-ironing to fix the design.

Popeline/ Delicate Fabric –To avoid blotting trace contours and colour progressively with the tip of the pen. We do advise using a piece of paper behind the fabric to ensure you do not mark any other surfaces.

Leather – Apply 2 coats for best vibrancy and coverage.

Blackboard – The marker will apply easily to blackboards. The marker will not be permanent on a blackboard and can be washed off easily using a wet sponge and lukewarm water. However if the blackboard is damaged or scratched it may be more difficult to remove.

Metal / Plastic – Apply 2 layers, allow the first layer to dry before going over it.

Wood – Sand down the wood beforehand to ensure a smooth surface.

Polystyrene/ Paper / Card – Apply 1-2 layers dependant on desired vibrancy, no fixing required.

Mineral / Stone – Apply 1-2 layers dependant on desired colour vibrancy. If this is for outdoor use apply varnish to finish.

 

You can find some great tutorials over on the Pilot Pinter website, and don’t forget to check out our range of colours 🙂

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FREE Angel Scarf Knitting Pattern

Once the new year starts, we all start to evaluate just how much fabric and yarn we have stashed around our house. This scarf is the ideal stash buster. Perfect for chilly spring mornings, it has pointed ends, and is nice and quick to knit. You can use any yarn and each scarf will be unique!

We recommend: 1 x 50g ball of Adriafil Sfumato

5mm needles.

Cast on loosely an even number of stitches depending on the width required – 50 stitches will produce a scarf approximately 25cm wide.
Knit 2 rows.
Pattern Row 1:
Knit 2 *Yarn over needle, knit 2 together, repeat from * until 2 stitches remain, knit 2.
Pattern Row 2:
Knit.
These 2 rows form the pattern. Repeat until the required length is achieved.
Knit 2 rows.
Cast off loosely.