Craft Gossip

Independent craft blog since 2007

How do you sew without a machine?

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A funny thing happened today. While in transit, I lost a button on my trousers. The only button that was holding my trousers up and from me being a major embarrassment in an airport!

Luckily, with the help of some fast thinking airline crew, I was able to save some dignity because they found some needle and thread that helped me sew the button back in a toilet and retain some dignity.

While I was hand sewing the button, I was thinking – has the art of hand sewing been lost these days? Do kids these days know that you can actually hand-sew?

Check out the gown pictured above. It was completely hand sewn. And why not! Sewing machines weren’t invented till the mid-19th century.

So how does one get started hand sewing? By not starting out with a gown like that of course :).

Start with these simple projects:

Martha Stewart’s hand sewing practice projects

Pruce’s hand sewing beginners projects

I am happy to state that my hand sewing skills that my mum taught me have kept me in good stead and the button that I sewed, stayed sewn till the end of the flight.

Comments

  1. Yet another reason to make sure you always carry a small sewing kit! And especially some safety pins in several sizes, always, always handy things.

Have you read?

Pencil Cross Stitch Patterns

Last year I shared my cute pencil cross stitch bookmark pattern, so I thought this year maybe I would look for more pencil cross stitch patterns to celebrate back to school or the writer in your life. 

If you’re looking for a fancier version of a pencil bookmark, check out this pretty one from Embrovera. It has pretty flowers and hearts around the pencil with a stitched border. It measures 27 by 86 stitches and comes out to 1.9 by 6.1 inches, or 4.9 by 15.6 cm, stitched on 14 count fabric. 

Speaking of flowers, there’s also this floral pencil cross stitch design from Oh My Stitches Shop. The pencil is black on this one but you could make it any color you like. It measures 37 by 102 stitches and uses 17 colors. On 14 count fabric it is 2.36 by 7.08 inches, or 6.71 by 18.5 cm. 

If you want to stitch a pencil that’s a cute teacher gift for back to school, try this one from Daily Cross Stitch, which features a pencil stretched into a heart shape and a heart shaped eraser. It calls for 11 colors and is 65 by 52. On 14 count fabric that comes to 4.64 by 3.71 inches, or 11.78 by 9.42 cm. 

There’s also this cute chubby pencil with the word learn from Stitch Gallery PDF that would be cute for a teacher (or a homeschool classroom). It looks like it uses five colors and the designer suggests using a piece of fabric that’s around 7 inches/17.6 cm square for this project. 

How about a teeny tiny pencil cross stitch pattern? This one from Bella Rose Craft also includes a wee apple design, and these mini patterns would be cute as a necklace or keychain charm. And at 7 by 13 stitches you can finish this one up in no time. 

Stitch the pencil alone or with this cute collection of school supplies that includes a glue bottle, crayons and calculator. The pattern is from sosacaetano, and it would be so cute for a classroom or stitched on a card. The full design as show is 6 by 1.75 inches (15.24 by 4.44 cm) on 14 count fabric.