March 2020 Day School - Box Making with Marguerita McBride

Marguerita began by showing us some lovely work from when she completed her City & Guilds, including a beautiful shawl with embroidery on, a box with felting on the outside and a felted bag.

Today we are going to make a padded fabric covered box, where we will be making a ridge using thicker card so that the lid fits on top nicely.  

We will be making the sides first and would also apply the bottom fabric  The box will be padded, with a fabric lined inside.  Marguerita suggested that we could also embellish our boxes with beads etc, but these would have to be added to the fabric before construction of the box.
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Notes were given out, and a second set about how to pad the carcass.

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​We were shown how to cover each piece, with a piece of fabric slightly larger than the card, which were then strung using a zig-zag stitch and pulled tight (stitching the long edge first), then tapering in the corners of the short edges.

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When all four pieces where made, we were to stitch down the sides (a circular needle was useful for this process).

We were then instructed to cut a strip of wadding that is up to half a centimetre short at the top and bottom, and join it using a simple zig-zag stitch with no overlap so that it lies flat on the box.

We then took our long piece of patterned fabric and placed it inside the box, folding the edges over the top to make sure it was going to be a tight fit.  If it was loose, we knew we needed to shorten the length a little.  When we were happy it fitted snugly, we put it back inside the box with the wrong side facing to the outside where we began to hand sew the overlapping edge to the top edge of the box.    

When this was completed, we turned the fabric so that the right side was facing the outside and tucked the bottom edges to the underside of the box, and zig-zag stitched it, mitering the corners.  An additional piece of card was also covered in fabric in the same way, and ladder stitched onto the bottom to complete the base.

The final task was the lid, not everyone had got to this stage, and for some, our projects would be completed at home and brought back for us to see at the next meeting.  However, some of us had started on our lids, and we were to put as much padding as we required, exactly the same size as the lid.  We then cut out our outer fabric, allowing 1.5 to 2 inches as a margin all round.  This was then sewn on using a zig-zag stitch and mitred corners, as before.  We could then pierce a hole in the centre from the top, in order to attach a button to the top of the lid.  As with the very bottom, a piece of card could be covered in fabric and as before, and ladder stitched to the underside.
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Another way we were shown, was to add a hinge by sandwiching a flat tube of fabric between the lid and the underside card cover and the side pieces and outer fabric, (if we didn’t want to use a button on the top).  

Here are the results of the day, we were all kept very busy with lots of hand sewing and we can't wait to complete them, as they are looking delightful.  Thank you Marguerita for a lovely day!

On one of our display tables today, we saw the results of some of the Savick Library Bunting Project well under way.  Members had taken home the characters drawn by the children from the library, and embroidered them.

For members who did not take part in the box making day school, there were lots of other projects being worked on individually.

Next month is our open day, and we will be having demonstrations in the morning with a sales table and shop (10.30am - 1pm) and at 2pm there will be a talk with Valerie Wartelle on felt making.  All visitors are welcome to both events, free admission. 

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