Finishing my new hexi sewing machine mat

It’s been a while since I shared how I’d fallen for some of Tula Pink’s bright designs, but since then there’s been a fair bit of activity and I’ve even finished both of my intended makes; one fully, and the other the sewing element is complete, but I’ve still to find the right kind of day to get my paintbrush out.

Today I’m sharing the fully completed project, which wasn’t even a twinkle in my eye back at the start. I enjoyed the whole English Paper Piecing process so much that once I’d finished the top for my sewing box, I wanted to carry on.

And so I did, and the result is a gorgeously bright mat to go under my sewing machine. Not that I really need a mat, but it will prevent any marking on the surface and I’ve got used to having my sewing machine on a mat. I’d been using an old and worn out cutting mat, and that helps me move the sewing machine back and forth on the desk when it’s not in use.

But it wasn’t very pretty. The finished mat is way prettier, and I’m really pleased with how it turned out.

The finished mat edged in raspberry bias binding on my desk, complete with sewing machine

An organic plan

I didn’t have an exact plan when I started, other than to create a mat for my sewing machine. I knew I wanted it roughly the same size as the old and worn cutting mat I’d been using, but I hadn’t really worked out - at the start anyway - how I was going to finish it, if I was going to quilt it (or how), and what the backing would be.

I knew I probably had some batting somewhere, so that was covered and I knew I wasn’t keen on having the hexagonal shapes on the edges, so I was always going to square those off somehow.

But when I started, finishing this mostly hand sewn project seemed a long way off.

Yes mostly hand sewn.

All of the piecing and quilting on the colourful front is done by hand. The binding was added with two rows of machine stitching on the front, and attached to the back by hand sewing slip stitches all the way round.

The back though is mostly machine sewn, the strips pieced by machine and also quilted by machine. And you know what, that’s perfectly ok.

Starting out

Back in January I needed to crack on with assembling enough hexies, and deciding on a layout - and the layout was probably the hardest part!

Testing a layout - in curved stripes in graduating colours

In my head I thought I’d create a colour graduating design, which would look both slick and chic. But try as I might, it didn’t feel right - and so I abandoned the layout above, and adopted a more random placement design. Switching individual pieces around to get a layout that I was happy with - don’t get me wrong, there was lots of switching, trying to get the different patterns evenly spaced.

A random placement design of hexies - much more colourful!
Testing the random layout in grayscale to check for overall colour distribution

Once I’d decided on my layout - and taking a picture so I didn’t forget it, I did the clever design trick of looking at the photo in grayscale to ensure that the lights and darks were also relatively evenly spaced.

And then I numbered every single hexi with its row and position so that sewing them together could be relatively mindless. With rows for each stack dotted around my craft room, at times it felt like I’d never reach the end.

Each pile of hexies representing a single vertical row in the random layout

Front assembled, now for the back

But gradually the individual hexagons were attached into rows, and the rows sewn together in order to create the front of my mat. I decided to fill in the gaps on the top and the bottom, but to leave the smaller gaps on the sides.

And I settled on the backing fabric too. I wanted something equally colourful, but something that would come together much more quickly, and nor did it need to be quite so labour intensive.

Front and back - top is the random layout front, bottom is strips of fabric from a 'grab bag' machine sewn together

In the end I settled on some of the less Christmassy fabrics that I’d picked up at the Newark Quilt Show at the start of the year. All of the fabrics were part of a ‘grab bag’ and a lucky dip. Part of their attraction for me was their selvedges, so I was keen to keep these on show.

The striped finished back with a strip design, quilted in straight lines

I’d slightly misjudged the size making it longer than it needed to be, but not as wide - so with my organic plan and solutions brain mode, I added part of what I’d cut off the bottom onto the side - which you can see on the left above - and that makes me smile.

Hand quilting the front

With the back complete - sewn together, and machine quilted - I could no longer procrastinate about how to finish off the front. At one local sewing group evening one of the ladies asked me if I was going to hand quilt my piece - I laughingly said no, I’m not a glutton for punishment.

A closer look at part of the hexies on the front with hand quilting - running stitch on most, chain stitch on some

However, it turned out that I am - as it needed some kind of quilting, and I thought machine quilting this side would lose some of its charm. I started out with a plan to chain stitch individual hexies to form an oblong shape, and I completed the inner oblong. But realistically, it took way longer than I wanted it to take and it didn’t look as good as I thought it would. I wasn’t unpicking it though.

So instead I changed tack, and added a small running stitch around the remaining hexies using the same embroidery thread.

Adding the binding and elastic

As I neared the end of the hand quilting I was thinking of how to finish this project - by chance I saw a haberdashery company online showcasing their widest bias bindings, and I was hooked. I did a rough calculation of how much I’d need, then added a bit more for good measure and waited for it to arrive.

I hadn’t thought about thread, but thought I’d probably have something. Turned out that I did, and in exactly the same colour - what are the chances? I’d picked up a bag of part-used overlocker threads in a recent WI sale in Newark - attracted by some of the colours, thinking I’d use them at some point without knowing that would be quite soon!

By now both the back and front were pinned together and so I pinned and re-pinned the binding to the front of my mat, mitring the corners as neatly as I could, adding extra pins to keep them in place before I slowly (at times) whizzed round with a couple of rounds of machine stitching.

Bias binding and a mitred corner with two rows of machine sewing attaching it to the front of the mat

With a stroke of luck the mitred corners behaved and stayed in place on both the front and the back. For the back I added some glitzy pink elastic (left over from mask making during the pandemic) across the corners and then pinned the back in place before slip stitching it and completing my mat. The elastic means I can slip the corners of the old and worn out cutting mat through these and get the benefit of its solidity, but the prettiness of my new mat. Not something I originally planned for, but a useful addition.

The rear side of the mat with elastic across the corner and hand stitched binding

Definitely a project to take on the go

For now my English Paper Piecing (EPP) projects have come to an end, but it’s something I’ve really enjoyed - and it’s something that is easily portable. The mini oblong pouch below - which is no more than 15cm long - carried everything I needed easily, that includes needle and thread, small scissors, a thimble, a thread catcher and approximately four rows of my hexi top. That’s where the row and positional numbering came in handy too - that’s definitely a top tip, write these on the back of the cardboard - mine took the format 6.1, 6.2 etc for row 6 position 1, position 2 and so on. Absolutely invaluable, unless of course you are creating a truly random design.

A selection of hexies secured with elastic bands, a mini pouch, needle thread, scissors and a thimble

So my new sewing mat looks good, is functional and is in place in my craft room. Now I need a day to paint my sewing box charcoal - I have the paint already. I need a day that’s not too hot, not too cold and one where I haven’t already committed to other things! Then I’ll share the other half of my EPP Tula Pink creation - don’t hold your breath!!

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It's a rainbow wrap!

It’s been a while since I shared my rainbow squares on here, 2020 in fact, so quite a while! But I recently rediscovered them, and thought that it probably wouldn’t take me too much effort to finish this project off, and if I got my skates on I could take it on my travels next month.

After this post I shared a layout post on Instagram, convinced that I’d nailed the layout and I’d ‘pinned’ it together with stitch markers to save me having to remember what I’d decided on, which was helpful.

THE ORIGINAL LAYOUT

But the more I looked at this layout, the less convinced I was. And then I realised that with a simple switch I could have a different look - and well, there was no harm in trying was there, if I disliked it I could switch it back again as it’s not like I had attached them permanently.

And so I took the yellow and green ‘ends’ and switched them into the middle:

switching colours - now blues and purples at the top, to greens, yellows and ending on pinks

For me this layout just popped, and just this small change made me feel instantly better about the whole thing - and more importantly, it made me want to finish it. Isn’t colour a strange thing?

Anyway to finish it I needed to permanently attach the squares to each other, I’d initially thought I’d do that sewing them together rather than by joining as per the vintage pattern and crocheting. But now that I’d come to actually join them, the sewing together option was a non-starter; I didn’t have leftover wool in each colour and I’d lose some of the laciness, so it was back to the quite sparse instructions in the vintage pattern, and working out a new plan.

That new plan involved a new purchase

I thought about a white or a silver, but neither grabbed me when I tried those colours alongside my rainbow squares, so I checked out my usual online wool shops and got lucky. This ‘skyfall’ colourway from The Wool Kitchen is a perfect match to the original wool which came as part of the mini-skein club by Vicki Brown Designs.

The new grey & multi colour flecked addition laid in the middle of the yellow and green squares

With a bit more head scratching, lots more ‘pinned’ stitch markers and a bit of trial and error I worked it out, and quite quickly the short lengths and then the longer lengths were attached to each other.

My rainbow squares attached to each other with a light grey chain stitch

ATTACHED!

A CLOSER LOOK AT THE JOIN

It already looks so much better than I could have imagined - and there’s a real chance I may just finish it soon too. I just need to add a row of double crochet around the edge and finish with a row of picot stitches - the pattern for this is just as sparse, but I’m confident it’s within my grasp.

Using my Gelli Prints

While creating the gelli prints is good fun, and slightly addictive, I knew that I needed to actually use them or otherwise you’d find me under several reams of them, and before long I’d probably need rescuing! The last class on the course was all about turning these wondrous prints into even more wondrous hand crafted items, and I left with quite a bundle of handmade items, some of which I probably wouldn’t have thought of or tried at home:

Using the gelli prints on (clockwise) a handmade notebook, a card and two bookmarks

A HANDMADE NOTEBOOK, A CARD AND TWO BOOKMARKS - THE GELLI PRINT WAY!

Though I was rather pleased with them, and I’m already using the bookmark with the orange tag in my book - and in case you’re wondering the orange tag is repurposed from a Superdry tag. I can definitely see that I’ll be using scraps of gelli printing alongside many other items I’ve saved for crafting - and I’m already wondering how small is too small for saving these scraps!

But anyway, inspired by the series of four classes I took in Newark and knowing that if I just put this to one side it would probably stay there for a while, I wanted to set about creating some more cards. I’d already toyed with strips of gelli printing and liked that so wanted to try blocks as backgrounds, with a design on top.

SIX pink/peach gelli print blocks with a gold and black floral design over the top on a white background

Both of these cards use the same concept but have turned out very different - and I like them both. I used a stencil for the outline of the floral and meadow designs and then adapted these, so they’re less stencil-like, using my knowledge of plants and flowers.

Six pink, white and blue gelli plate blocks arranged on a blue card with a meadow scene in black and highlights with pink and blue on top

And didn’t they work out well?

I wanted to try using some of the smaller scraps, and so that’s where gift tags came in. I think these were also successful and I used some scrap ribbon on both, and those black diagonal stripes - well they’re old dymo tape that I found in one of my many craft room boxes.

Two gift tags using scraps of gelli printing, some ribbon and washi tape (on the left hand tag) and dymo tape on the right

These three gift tags were originally intended as a card, however I realised my knowledge of birds is lacking and one (now cut out and discarded) wasn’t right at all. Not wanting to lose all of my work I repurposed these further making gift tags and adding ribbon saved from Christmas crackers many years ago as ties - and I’m not sure you’d know if I’d not told you.

A gift tag to complement the card - both use green, yellow and orange gelli printing.  The card also has scraps of ribbon and paper, a strip of map and a button

My final make was again to avoid throwing away small scraps leftover from the card - and another gift tag. I think I could quite get into having coordinating cards and gift tags, though I’m not sure anyone other than me would notice!

I just know that there’s so many more uses for all of the gelli printing I already have, let alone the ones I’ve yet to print. I’m also pretty sure that this new craft is here to stay!

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