Are You Thready?

I spent yesterday mocking up a sofa frame from bits of MDF and garden canes in an effort to find out if a replacement sofa I had taken a fancy to would fit through the front door, up the stairs and around a rather awkward angle into the lounge.

It didn't!

So, to stop myself obsessing over possible sofa alternatives and staring out at the continuing wind and rain, I decided to turn my mind to the more frivolous task of decorating fabric patches.

This is a project that a fellow crafter had alerted me to. It's a competition being run by White Stuff called Are You Thready? It simply asks you to decorate an A5 sized fabric patch in any way you wish. You can either pick up a fabric patch from your local White Stuff store or just measure out your own piece of fabric (14.8cm wide by 21cm high).

For every patch you hand in to your local store or post to head office before 10 March, they will donate £5 to your store's local charity. Each patch is then incorporated into a cushion cover or quilt which is also sent to the local charity. If that isn't incentive enough, each store picks a winning patch, the winner receiving a £50 White Stuff voucher; and each of these patches gets sent to head office for an overall winner to be chosen and that person wins a craft holiday to Italy.

Now, I don't remotely expect to win any of the above but if an afternoon of playing around with fabric can turn into a charitable donation, I'd say everyone is a winner.

I popped down to my local White Stuff store in the hope of picking up a fabric patch but they were completely out. Apparently they had gone in just three days of the competition being launched. Instead I was given a template, but after travelling home amongst my shopping and it then being attacked by the cat, it was looking a little worse for wear by the time I was ready to begin!

Undeterred, the first challenge was to find some fabric to decorate. Not that there is any challenge in finding bits of fabric in this house. No, the challenge was choosing which one (or ones) to use. In the end I pulled out a selection and began playing around with felt, ribbon, buttons and beads.

Again the cat helped out, sending my carefully selected and arranged button embellishments to the four corners of the room, skittering under drawers and book shelves, never to be seen again (or at least not without a lot more furniture moving than I was prepared to undertake).

A thoroughly enjoyable few hours ensued and here are the before and after results.

Now it's just left for me to label them up and drop them down to the shop. In the very least, it will result in an additional £15 being donated to the Cots for Tots Appeal. Not a bad outcome for an enjoyable few hours of sewing and far better than trawling furniture websites for sofas!