So I’ve been busy nesting lately. Except not with preparing a nursery or anything… instead I have been tarting up my sewing room. Obviously. Got my priorities sorted!

I made this jazzy ironing board cover following this fab tutorial on the Tilly and the Buttons website. It was so quick and easy to stitch up! It basically ends up like one big shower cap which fits over the ironing board. Threading the string around the edge took a bit of patience, but I did it sat on the sofa in my PJs watching Nashville, which eased the pain!

The fabric I used was a remnant on sale at Backstitch. I was obsessed with the colour and pattern as soon as I locked eyes on it. You might also recognise this fabric from inside the pockets of the Guise Pants I made recently (blog post here).

Fitting the cover to my ironing board was a 2-man effort to get it perfect, and tied up nice and tight (shout out to husband for helping with this!).

Et voila! A new ironing board cover which didn’t cost much at all to make, took very little time and skill, and adds colour and prettiness to my sewing room. Maybe this will mean that I will have a new found enjoyment of pressing now… or at least it will distract me from swearing when I inevitably burn my fingers in the future…!

Happy pressing people!

Guys, I made my first ever pair of trousers! I had a blast working with Sewing World Magazine and Backstitch, reviewing Papercut Patterns’ Guise Pants. My full review can be found in December’s Sewing World Magazine, which can be purchased here.

Not going to lie, I was a bit scared of tackling trousers, as mostly my sewing experience had been in making dresses, tops and jackets. It was high time I gave trousers a stab, so was thrilled to work on this project.

The fabric from Backstitch, a charcoal-coloured cotton suiting, was very well behaved. This helped as I was so nervous to get these trousers absolutely spot-on perfect – it would have been my worst nightmare if I had a tricky fabric to work with!

I had to tackle making a fly, welt pockets and the waistband with belt loops.  All went so well – and I felt all proud and good about myself to see the end product.

The sizing came up quite big on these, so for future I would make a size smaller, as it’s hard to take in at the side seams after finishing the pockets, so would have been best if I had just chosen a size down. Having said this, I did make these during early pregnancy… after I’ve had the baby I will probably be saying the complete opposite!

My favourite element of this make is the fun pop of colour in the pockets. Gives the make a bit of character I think 🙂

Pattern: Papercut Patterns Guise Pants

Fabric: Backstitch

Thanks so much to the chaps at Sewing World Magazine for asking me to work on this project – it was great fun working with you!