Anxious sewing

As some of you may or may not know I suffer from bouts of severe anxiety and depression. Have done all me natural but I am always exploring new ways to manage them (I call it my tool box...it's quite full) which is how I got into knitting.  

Recently I have discovered mindfulness as a way to manage anxiety and finding it really helps. That, Kalms and herbal teas! One of the mindfulness books I purchased on my Kindle was Journey Into Mindfulness: Gentle ways to let go of stress and live in the moment by Dr. Patrizia Collard and in it it says to keep a notebook of your journey. I have quite a few notebooks lying around but none of them felt particularly zen like so I decided to sew a cover for one out of the many fat quarters also lying around the place.

Using this website to give the notebook a base, (the original pattern was quite strong showing through most fabrics) and then this website to sew up a cover.

Glued on a white cotton base to try and hide the original pattern on notebook

I will be honest, try 1 failed miserably.  I'm not quite sure what I did wrong but I think it was a measuring and seam allowance issue. After finding some stuffing try 1 became a lumbar support cushion for my office chair.  Scraps from try 1 also became a small pin cushion, created from my own brain and filled with scraps of fabric.

Never has a failed attempt been so comfy

If in doubt - pin cushion!

Try 2 worked well but I missed out some steps by not measuring for the front pockets and not sewing two larger pieces together, the former 'cause I wanted to get creative and the latter 'cause I couldn't figure out how that would work.  I also gave the whole thing 1" seam allowance which was a ridiculous amount but hey it fitted and now the notebook feels a lot more zen....and pretty :)

Lessons learnt from my first sewing projects? 

• Be more patient, actually cut the material in a straight line and keep it neat rather than just cutting and thinking yeah it'll be fine nobody will see that bit.
• Press the material - I hate ironing but it really should be done, even for notebook covers and cushions
• Find a way of taking better photographs for the blog!

Paisley pretty

Front cover

Back cover