This was a perfect, quick happy sewing project to use up my scraps! It’s a pattern from the Merchant & Mills Sewing Book and it’s a Hussif (fancy name for a travel sewing kit). Here’s how I made it.
1. The fabric
For this I used up my left over purple linen chambray (from making my Tania Culottes), cotton with a printed pattern of sewing things (from my ironing board cover), and cotton wadding created from some sweatshirting (from my toddler hoodie). To make the tie straps I used some white cotton bias binding, 1″ wide. I sewed two strips together then turned inside out then topstitched. To create the cotton wadding I used 4 layers of the sweatshirting fabric, sewn together using diagonal stitches.
2. The pattern
As mentioned this is a pattern from the Merchant & Mills Sewing Book. It’s a beautiful book which has some good beginner patterns in. I made some minor changes to the pattern. I decided to use two layers for the outer layer because my linen was a bit see through. For the pin cushion I decided to use two layers of the linen to create a patch to cover the wadding for the pincushion; this is a bit different from the pattern which suggested a pinked finish.
3. The challenges
This is a nice simple pattern so there weren’t many challenges. I needed something simple to sew that would give me a sense of satisfaction. I enjoyed focusing on taking my time and doing each stage carefully, to get as good a finish as I could.
4. The end result
I’m delighted with my new travel sewing pack! It’s larger than I realised it would be, but that means I can fit more stuff in it. The make-shift wadding worked really well which was a happy surprise. Now I need to buy lots of travel sewing things to fill it with (not that I’m planning to travel anywhere anytime soon!).
The sewing resolution 