MIAMI at Kew Gardens

Hilary and the Two Clares escaped from MIAMI Towers on Friday to spend a great day at Kew Gardens, despite the grey skies and the endless rain. We were invited there by the lovely people at START UK to demonstrate how you can make a contribution to sustainability by upcycling instead of buying new stuff all the time. (see more about START UK and the Start@Kew Festival in the post below)

Clare O shared some scary statistics on the amount of perfectly good furniture that ends up in landfill, then Hilary showed how she turned some very shabby old dining chairs into swanky new ones. You can find out how she did it on the MIAMI website.

Here she is with the before and lined up below are the afters - three very different treatments, including a decoupage chair made from old comic books. Each one is explained in more detail on the MIAMI website.

There were some fantastic people at the event, which was a real gathering of movers and shakers in sustainability - and we'll be sharing with you in the future some of the great things they're doing. People like Clay Swift aka The Green Marine, Edible Bustop, and the schoolboys from Savio Salesian College Bootle who make bat or bird boxes - called the BoBBox, as well as the people from Morsbags, Project Dirt,  Carbon Leapfrog, Gustavo Montes De Oca from the Golden Company, my old friend Amy Cooper from the Secret Seed Society  and many more. Lots of them have agreed to write guest posts for us so look out for more on here and our website about the wonderful things they're all doing.

We hope we passed on some inspiration - and we certainly came away with much more! Thanks to Michael, Catherine, Laurena and everyone at Start Uk for a great festival.

Clare F

MIAMI in Somerset

I stopped off in Somerset, en route to Devon for a week in the rain to see my friend Joan Taylor. It's always inspiring catching up with Joan, seeing what projects she has on the go and admiring her horticultural and sewing skills.

When I last visited her, this chair was an upholstery work in progress. Joan is a real perfectionist and she spent hours fiddling about with different fabrics and re-doing her work if it wasn't up to her discerning eye. The final result is a really great patchwork-style chair. This is a great way to use up those odd pieces of fabric and creates a completely unique bespoke piece.

Joan has been working on a small quilt. She meets with a group of friends to do sewing projects together and they decided to try convergence quilting in their session last week. This machine quilting technique involves sewing two or more strips of fabric together, then these are cut and pieced again. She's going to send me some instructions, so when she does I'll share them with you on the main website.

I also enjoyed looking around Joan's garden. She's self sufficient in vegetables from her large veggie plot, which provides her with plenty of fruit and veg to freeze, eat fresh or preserve in her delicious jams and chutneys.

and she also has a lovely cottage garden, full of flowers, shrubs and herbs. She wasn't happy that I took this photo as the lawn has been suffering from the lack of rain recently. Let's hope it's greening up again nicely now - it certainly poured while I was in Devon.

I look forward to having a go at convergence quilting myself soon.

Have you visited our main website? www.makeitandmendit.com

Clare F

Have a go at upholstery

Lots of people tell me they're too scared to try upholstery - so I thought I'd share my own experience. In fact this was what got me started down the Make it and Mend it road in the first place.

I had a very old scruffy red velvet nursing chair and a sprung Edwardian dining chair that I was given by my mother and was thinking of throwing out. Instead my friend Joan suggested I have a go at upholstering them, by coming along to the class she goes to weekly in Somerset. I was doubtful but signed on for a week long course and was immediately hooked. Unfortunately I can't show you the step by step photos as they were on a phone that was lost - but here's the finished product

This chair had springs that were still quite reasonable and didn't need replacing - but they did need re-fixing and all the webbing and stuffing had to be replaced. I re-stuffed it with new horsehair - and put the old horsehair in a pillow case and washed it so it was ready to use for my next project.

I found the sewing very relaxing and also got great satisfaction from stripping the chair down to its base essentials, cleaning and polishing the wood and taking out all the old nails and webbing.

I finished the nursing chair in four days and then started on the dining chair. There was no way I could get that done in a day - as it needed new springs and webbing, so I booked myself in for another couple of days in a few weeks time and carried on at home in the interim. When I went back to Somerset I finished it off and also re- covered a cheap footstool at the same time, using matching fabric.

Joan was an inspiration to me - and a perfectionist - she persuaded me to take all the piping off the nursing chair after I'd finished sewing it on - and do it all over again - as I hadn't positioned it quite correctly. I was really glad afterwards.

This was my first attempt at doing any form of sewing or craft work in almost 30 years. Since then I have been unstoppable and rediscovered my youthful interest. I find it deeply satisfying and very relaxing. So have a go - you won't know what you're capable of until you try.

My upholstery course was at  Lilac barn where the very capable Cherry taught me all the basics. She runs regular courses in upholstery and other crafts -  in a lovely location in the Somerset Levels >> Lilac Barn Craft Courses
or check out your local adult education centre.

New life for old sofas

You flop into the sofa to watch a bit of mindless television but just can’t get comfy. A spring's sticking in your bum, the seat cushions are squashed unplumpably limp and lifeless, the bit the cat got is hanging frayed and tattered or those worn shiny patches on the arms taunt you.

Yes, it’s that time. You need a new sofa!.......But do you? Couldn't you repair it? Couldn't you recover it? New sofas are so expensive. What do you do?

There's a new website to help you to decide. 'Save our Sofas' helps you through the process of deciding if you can fix it yourself. If it's beyond you, they'll help you to recycle it or reuse it by giving it to people who will refurbish it and find it a new home. They also give you advice on buying a sofa that will last as well as tips on fixing it up.

They'll also give you the chance to make your upgly old sofa a star. http://www.saveoursofas.org have launched a competition to find Britain’s ugliest sofa. Go to the site and upload your photo and you could have the chance to win new upholstery to give it a new lease of life.