WOYWW - Troy And The New Cushion Covers

It's Wednesday again and time for WOYWW .  Join in and post a link at Never-To-Have-A-Website Julia showing your work desk for others to rummage around. We are a nice bunch of Nosey-Parkers, I promise, and we love finding new friends and hidden talent in Blogland.

Here's my WOYWW offering for this week......cushion covers.

Despite not being that old, just a matter of months actually, they are looking tatty and tired. Buy cheap, buy twice as they say. So instead of sewing on the button that had fallen off, I decided to set about making new covers.  At best, I am a reluctant machine-sewer who mutters and grumbles to herself until the job's finished. I'd much rather be knitting or crocheting, or better still, paper-crafting!

Anyway, here is my work desk in action, a fold-up table that gives me the space I need to be creative.

My sewing machine, 30 year old Troy, has recently had an (expensive) service so I needed to prove to Hubby that it had been money well spent. I have a few fabric offcuts from a shop in Brighton from which I chose a brown silky material and an abstract flower pattern for the job. A couple of hours later, Troy had proven he was in tip-top condition, sewing beautifully. No more tension troubles! And I had two new cushion covers with a pattern on one side and plain silk on the other, plus an envelope-style one, again silk on the reverse and patterned on the front.
Hubby seemed marginally impressed, and when pushed, agreed they were an improvement upon the old ones.

As I've said before, sewing machines and I do not get along. I am very happy to have completed this simple project without any tantrums. And if you were wondering, Troy has been put to the back of the garage again..... probably for another year or so.

I just hope that my cushion covers last longer than the shop-bought ones!
I'm looking forward to poking around as many work-desks as I can manage later this evening, when I've finished work.

Sewing Machine Wars

My sewing machine and I do battle now and then, as seldom as I can manage, and last weekend was a full-on battle! I avoid my sewing sewing like he has the plague. To say we hate one another is an understatement. I swear Troy (so named because he's made by Toyota) deliberately makes my life difficult.
My parents bought him for me for my 21st birthday, aeons ago. I had such wonderful plans for projects we would do together, the clothes I would create, the cushions and curtains I would make etc etc. But it wasn't to be. We took an instant dislike to each other and it's been War ever since!
I know there are a lot of wonderful sewers out there who never have problems, but 'tension' is what causes me the most aggravation - it's either too tight or too loose....I can never get it right. I usually give up after wasting half a reel of thread, and resort to hand-stitching, which takes soooo much longer but gets the job done.
Anyway, I promised my elder daughter that I would use her spare material to make some cushions for her new flat. So out came Troy and.........the same old story. He flatly refused to sew a decent stitch, I twiddled the tension knob back and forth, cursed the stupid machine and...........eventually........ produced these.

Nothing special to you gifted sewers out there. Just two cushions: black one side, cream the other.
But to me it was a small Victory!

I need to remember that  'It’s not who you are that holds you back, It’s who you think you are not.'