AFNOR flat-fold fabric face mask – a modified sewing technique, tutorial with instructions and photographs

Posted on May 23, 2020 by Kate Watson

I don’t think anyone predicted that ‘home-made fabric face coverings’ would be the hot apparel item of 2020, but here we are…

Fabric face masks are easy to make, if you have a fabric stash, a basic sewing machine, and a vague idea of how to use it then you’re well on your way. The AFNOR pattern is the best one I’ve found. AFNOR is the French national standards organisation (think ‘kitemark’ if you’re British), and they have undertaken an extensive research program into suitable and effective designs and fabrics, resulting in a PDF report you can find here (in English) which recommends this ‘flat-fold’ pattern, similar to a standard surgical mask, and a ‘duckbill’ mask pattern. The PDF is a really interesting, if rather dense read, but the way the patterns are presented is rather different from what ‘hobby sewists’ are used to working from!

I have modified the assembly technique to make it easier to sew, and also to allow me to use 1/2” bias binding for the ties – if you have 1” bias tape or ribbon, I recommend you use that instead, and you’ll avoid the slightly fiddly bit! (There are extra instructions for using 1″ tapes at the end of the tutorial.)

Fabric selection and preparation:

AFNOR recommend a densely woven cotton or polycotton fabric for this mask, and at least two layers (you can use three if you’re not confident your fabric is heavy enough). Quilting cottons are ideal as they’re usually good solid fabrics and suitable for high temperature washing. For my masks I used a quilting cotton for the outside layer and a good solid cotton curtain lining fabric for the inside. You should be able to breathe through the layers of your chosen fabric if you place them directly against your mouth and nose – but with some resistance. AFNOR suggest trying to blow out a match or candle through the fabric (and through the finished mask) – you should not be able to do this, no matter how much you huff and puff!

Pre-wash your fabrics at 60C, dry and iron before use.

Materials and equipment:

For each mask, you will need:

Two (or three) 20cm (8”) squares of appropriate fabrics
180cm (2 x 90cm) lengths of bias tape or ribbon – I use 1/2” bias tape for this tutorial but if you have 1” bias tape or ribbon it would be better!
Matching or contrasting coloured sewing thread

Equipment:

Sewing machine – a straight-stitch machine is fine but zig-zag stitch is a handy bonus.
Scissors or rotary cutter and mat.
Paper to make a 20cm square template if using scissors.
An iron and ironing board.

How to make the AFNOR flat-fold fabric face mask (modified technique):

Notes on assembly:

This mask is assembled without the use of pins or tacking stitches. This is to avoid poking unnecessary holes in fabric we want to be a barrier. (It’s a bit fiddly in places but the pieces are small enough and the seams all straight so it’s entirely possible.)
Secure the start and end of each line of stitching (I won’t keep repeating this, just assume you need to do it every time).
All stitching is straight-stitch unless specified otherwise.

Cut your fabrics to size (2 (or three) 20cm / 8” squares) per mask. (I’ve cut four as I was making two masks at once to make it easier to illustrate this tutorial.)

With right-sides together, stitch 1/2” / 12mm seams top and bottom, leaving the sides open.

Turn the fabrics right-way out and press the seams flat. Do this carefully as tight to the seams as you can.

Now with the fabric the right way out, sew along these seams again, 10mm / 3/8” from the edge. This topstitching catches the extra fabric folded inside and strengthens the edge of the mask. A contrast thread makes a nice detail here!

Your square is now slightly rectangular with seams top and bottom and open sides. Fold the mask in half, seam-sides together and press to mark the centre.

With the inside surface of the mask upmost, fold each half into the centre so that the outside fold just reaches the line of the topstitching. In effect you’re creating a ‘box-pleat’. Press these folds carefully from both sides to secure them.

Secure the folds by sewing a seam through all the layers, 5mm / 1/4” from both raw edges.

Now, trim these edges neatly, removing no more than 1-2mm of fabric. Tidy any loose ends of thread.

The next section of these instructions specifically relates to using 1/2” bias tape for your ties. If you’re using 1” bias tape or 1” ribbon, brief (simpler) instructions are at the end of the tutorial.

Find the centre of the 90cm length of tape and mark it by folding in a crease line.

Place your mask inside-surface uppermost.

Open up one fold of the tape, and line up the edge of the tape with the seam you have sewn along the short side. Make sure the ‘inside’ of the bias tape is placed downwards, in contact with the inside of the mask. The existing fold of the bias tape should sit over the raw edge of the fabric.

Make a single line of stitching along the middle of the fold of tape, close up to the short edge of the mask. This is fiddly, as you’re sewing within 2-3mm of the edge, so work slowly and carefully.

Now turn the mask outside-surface up. Fold the tape over the raw edge, leaving the final fold tucked under. It should hide both existing seams on this side.

Using a zig-zag stitch, if you have one:

Shorten the stitch length as far as your machine will let you and start with a dense, reinforcing cluster of stitches, close to the ege, where the tape is over the single-fold of fabric. Then extend your stitch length and sew along the tape, repeating the reinforcing stitches when you reach the other end. This technique provides strong reinforcement where the join between the ties and the mask will be under tension when the mask is worn, and the zig-zag stitch overcasts the raw edge of the bias tape on the inside, preventing this from fraying when the mask is worn and washed.

Without a zigzag stitch:

Ideally use 1” binding (see end of tutorial).

If that’s not an option, sew two straight seams, one as close to the folded edge of the tape as you can, and one in the middle. Then at right-angles to these, at the start and end, sew some reinforcing stitches (go forward, reverse, forward again several times) to strengthen the join. Consider also reinforcing these areas by hand stitching and take special care that the ends of any seams are carefully secured.

Do the same on the other side.

Finally, fold and press the bias tapes in half so that the open side faces towards the mask. You will have to shape it a bit near the mask joins to make this work. You can ‘disappear’ any ends of thread from the inside of the mask into the fold of the bias tape.

Straight-stitch the full length of the tapes (it’s only 1/4” wide so just sew in the centre), continuing over the mask seam, along the centre of the zig-zag stitching, and all the way to the other end. This secures the raw edges of the tape and will reduce the tendency for it to stretch in use. Secure your ends.

This all looks much tidier if you use thread that matches your bias tape (as you can see in ‘the one I made earlier’), but I wanted you to be able to see what I was doing as clearly as possible.

That’s it! Your mask is ready to wear!

This is a really nicely fitting mask.

Experiment a bit to find the right position for the ties for you – ladies, if you have a ponytail this is a real advantage as you can tie above / below this to adjust exactly where on your head the tapes lie! While tying behind your head can seem a bit of a nuisance, you can wear this mask comfortably for hours whereas elasticated ear straps start to be uncomfortable surprisingly fast, especially if they’re tight enough.

You should find the fold allows it to sit quite close to your face both sides of the bridge of your nose, without leaving a big gap, and that the lower fold sits snugly under your chin.

You can wear the mask for up to four hours – after that, give yourself a break, have something to eat and drink, and put on a fresh one! After wearing, with clean hands untie the bows behind your head and remove the mask by holding the ties. Don’t touch the front of the mask after wearing. Pack the used mask into a ziplock bag until you can launder it. Wash with your normal laundry detergent, ideally at 60C, dry (ideally in bright sunlight), and press with a hot iron before wearing again.

Extra – using 1” bindings:

1” ribbon

Fold the ribbon in half along its length and press to give you two layers 1/2” wide.

Find the centre of the ribbon.

With the mask inside surface uppermost, line up the middle of the ribbon with the middle of the mask and align the lengthways fold with the raw edge of the mask. Sew a straight stitch seam in the middle of the fold (about 1/4” from the edge).

Turn the mask outside surface up, fold the other half of the ribbon over, and secure with a zig-zag stitch as in the main tutorial.

OR – secure with two lines of straight stitch, one at the very edge of the ribbon and one about half-way between the edge of the ribbon and the edge of the mask. Reinforce the joins as described in the main tutorial. Straight-stitch works fine here because your ribbon should not have any raw edges.

Finally, sew along the doubled ribbon from end to end to secure.

1” bias tape

As with 1” ribbon but start by aligning the raw edge of one of the folds with the raw edge of the inside surface of the mask and secure this first, then fold fully over and secure the front, so that both ‘wings’ of the tape are folded safely on the inside, with no raw edges exposed. You will get the neatest finish with a single row of straight stitch as close to the edge of the front of the binding as possible, but you will still need to reinforce the areas under tension as before.

To finish, sew along the folded over tape from end to end to secure and strengthen the tape.

Happy sewing – I hope you enjoy making your mask and wear it with pride! There’s nothing better than protecting others. Stay safe everyone!

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Coping with lockdown differently – out with the new, in with the old?

Posted on May 6, 2020 by Kate Watson

There seems to be a cacophony of voices out there with advice about what we should all be doing during lockdown. We are being bombarded with recommendations: we should learn something new, a language or a skill; we should embark on new creative projects; we should learn new culinary skills and cook three meals from scratch each day; we should bake sourdough (I mean, we should, if we want to, because it’s wonderful – but it’s not obligatory!); we should make banana bread; we should clang pans on our doorsteps at 8pm on Thursday evenings; we should focus on our fitness; we should (re-)read the Lord of the Rings, War and Peace, or some other worthy volume(s); we should start a new business or side-hustle; we should meditate; we should start writing that novel… And we should showcase these achievements, accompanied by artfully-filtered photographs, obviously, on social media so that all our friends can approve of how productive we’re being and how we’re not wasting this time we have been given.

Honestly, it can all feel rather overwhelming – particularly when these directives bump up against the reality of lives where childcare, remote working, financial and practical restrictions, and worries for our own safety and for that of our loved ones are all competing for our time and attention. I know a lot of us feel like we have less energy and capacity than ever, despite apparently having more time. Instead of feeling inspired, we feel hectored and hassled by the advice, evidence that we’re ‘doing it wrong’ somehow.

For all that, most of us know instinctively and from experience that some of these things (which specific things will vary from person to person) can help us feel better – more calm and centred, settled, more able to cope with the fears, anxieties, and individual challenges of these unprecedented times. Certainly, for me, holding something tangible that I have made – whether it’s a craft item, or a loaf of bread, a meal, some fresh produce I’ve grown in the garden, or even publishing a blog post – gives me a real feeling of achievement. The process of ‘making’ grounds me in the moment, it can be a very mindful process, and promotes a state of flow, where we can escape from our other concerns. Then again there are times when I want to do nothing more than sit on the garden step in the sunshine, listen to the birds and watch the butterflies, curl up on the sofa with a mug of tea and listen to a record, or enjoy a bubble bath – and if we have the blessing of the time to do these things, wonderful! A moment enjoyed – especially in times like these – is never wasted.

And so, (recognising the irony that I’m becoming yet another of those voices – sorry!) I have an alternative suggestion. You can take from it what you like, or ignore it completely. It’s a simple idea, actually: instead of something new, do something old. Don’t start something, finish something. Revisit what you’ve loved in the past, and build skills you use every day.

All makers and crafters, in my experience, have three things in common. The first is a stash – of fabrics, yarns, papers, pencils, paints, ingredients, books, tools and equipment – relevant to the art(s), craft(s) or making we enjoy. The second is a file (physical, digital, or mental) of projects we’ve thought of starting. And the third – unless you’re one of life’s completer/finisher personalities (and if you are, God bless you, where would the world be without you?) – is probably a modest (or less modest) collection of projects that you started but never quite finished.

Now, I am definitively *not* a completer/finisher sort of person. Perhaps, like me, you’re a gannet for new ideas and techniques and find yourself picking up a new hobby every few years. Just thinking back over the last decade, I have to own up to taking up home brewing, curing and smoking, sourdough baking, candle making, crochet, embroidery, dressmaking, upholstery, a range of smallholding tasks… each time to solve a problem or try something different. So, tucked away in corners of the house and shed, I have tools and equipment for each of these, a little stash of materials, and, often, an unfinished project or two.

There are, I think, three main reasons we abandon projects. Distraction (certainly if you’re me!). A change in our circumstances leading to lack of time or attention – going back to work or school, starting a new job, or welcoming a new family member. And sometimes, we walk away from something we’re making because it stops pleasing us – we decide that we don’t, after all, like the pattern or colour, or we feel a mistake we’ve made has marred the item and we struggle to enjoy the process or the item as a result, because we’ve ‘ruined it’.

I would like to recommend this – find something unfinished, and finish it. You may well not even remember why you gave it up, but you probably do. If it’s down to that tricky final reason, it’s really worth trying to overlook whatever it is about the item you’re unhappy with, and continue. Why would I invest time and effort into something I may not like any more, you might ask? It’s a fair question, so I’ll give it the best and most thorough answer I can: Firstly, because the sense of achievement you will get from finishing it off properly is truly its own reward. Secondly, taste is a very individual thing, and I’m sure with a little thought you can choose a friend or family member who would be delighted to receive your handmade object as a gift, even if it no longer appeals to you the way you hoped it would (and I promise they will be completely blind to whatever you regard as its imperfections). Finally, and probably most importantly for me – because nothing in this world is perfect, and nothing we make as imperfect human beings can ever *be* perfect, persisting with and completing an imperfect project is a powerful act of acceptance, both of our imperfect selves, and of the imperfect state of the world. In this particular moment, I can’t think of many things more valuable than that!

(It is said that both Amish quilt-makers and Persian rug-weavers introduce an intentional ‘mistake’ into their work, because imperfection is Human, but perfection is the preserve of the Divine. I have no idea if it’s true but it’s a lovely idea.)

On a practical note – it may also be that you stopped because you were missing the next thing you needed to continue – whether that was an item or a skill. I would encourage you to be willing to improvise! Think about how else the item might progress with the equipment and skills you already have. Can you re-purpose what you need – for example using a zipper or some fabric from some old clothing or bedlinen too worn-out for the charity shop? It may not be ‘perfect’ – so what? It adds character! It might even evolve into a rather different, more interesting item than you expected!

Now, if you have no unfinished projects (I mean, I believe you, many wouldn’t…) you could instead re-explore an activity you’ve enjoyed in the past. There’s every chance that if you loved something once, you will love it again. You can probably think back to things you’ve enjoyed doing in years gone by. Did you love drawing or painting as a child? Is there a musical instrument you have neglected in recent years? Did you used to enjoy writing songs or poetry? Have you got a sewing machine gathering dust at the bottom of the wardrobe? Is there an old favourite recipe that you haven’t made in years? Whatever you decide to pick up, just think that it’s only for you, you have nothing to prove – don’t worry about being ‘good’ or ‘bad’ at it (which is, sadly, often one of the reasons we give up things we enjoy) just see where it takes you, and who knows, you may be surprised by the results!

My final suggestion is this – if you don’t feel like making something, why not take some time to strengthen a skill you use frequently? We all, I think, have everyday skills that we’ve taught ourselves as we’ve gone through life. Nearly all of us cook, but few of us have been to culinary school. Most of us type, but few of us went to secretarial college. What tends to happen is that we bootstrap ways of doing things – typing with two fingers on each hand while looking at the keyboard, for example, or the way we handle our kitchen knives – and these serve us well but leave us neither as fast nor as accurate as we would be if we could touch-type, or had ‘proper’ culinary knife skills. But why is this?

There comes a point when our self-taught techniques are pretty quick and effective. Effective enough that ‘going back’ and starting to do things an even better way is slow and frustrating and infuriating in comparison.

When I first taught myself to crochet, I fell into the habit of holding both the yarn and the hook in my right hand and the work in my left hand, using my fingers to loop the yarn over the hook the way you would when knitting. I got pretty good at doing it that way and made a few big projects. But because of the ‘double-action’ looping of the yarn, I couldn’t get any faster. Not only that, several friends asked me to teach them how to crochet and I really struggled to demonstrate technique to them because mine was so wildly unsuitable. To get over that hurdle, I had to ‘force myself’ to do things properly. I started a new scarf project, nothing too complicated but with enough technique and variation to keep me interested (I know myself well enough to say confidently that if I’d started crocheting a ‘test’ rectangle instead, I wouldn’t have got four rows into it before putting it down and never picking it up again), and made myself to hold the hook in one hand and the yarn in the other. It was slow, clumsy, and cumbersome, and I kept having to correct myself when I picked up the project and reflexively went back to my old way of working. At the beginning, I wasn’t just slower than I was used to, I was worse – the tension was uneven, I struggled to manage the yarn in my left hand, and I made mistakes with the pattern because I had to concentrate so hard on what my fingers were doing, all of which led to a lot of really frustrating pulling-down and repeating. But with time I got faster. By the time I’d finished the project, I was just as fast as I had been doing it the old way. I’m even faster now. And Mum loved the scarf when I gave it to her for Christmas!

The point, more succinctly (sorry, if you read this blog regularly you’ll know that I’m a sucker for tenuously-related anecdotes) is this – sometimes to go forwards we need to first go backwards. In our busy, everyday lives there often isn’t time to do things more slowly for a while in order to be faster and better later. Right now, there might be.

I’m not going to promise you’ll enjoy it, at least not to start with! But ‘future-you’ will thank you for your efforts. So maybe it’s time to break out Mavis Beacon (is she even still a thing?) and teach yourself to touch type properly. Or find some good YouTube tutorials and start to (re-)learn some kitchen knife skills. Learn to fillet a fish, break down a chicken, or dice an onion like a boss. Maybe there are some drills and scales you ought be doing on your instrument, which you know would improve your playing but you never quite seem get around to? Every one of us (with obvious allowances for disability) has the capacity to do these things well. If you start doing them correctly right now, you’ll be doing them correctly and slowly (OK, sometimes very slowly, and not so well as you might like, initially!). Doing them correctly and fast comes with practice – there’s no alternative to repetition! Keep stubbornly doing it the new ‘right’ way and the rewards will come, and they’ll come faster than you expect. And the benefits will last a lifetime.

Thinking of you all, wherever you are around the world and whatever life is throwing at you at the moment. Do what works for you. Ignore what doesn’t work for you. There’s no right or wrong way of coping with unprecedented times. Be gentle with yourselves. Cherish the small wins and the every day joys. Stay safe. You’ve got this!

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Reviewed – “Back to Basics – Your Essential Guide to Make Do and Mend”

Posted on April 22, 2015 by Kate Watson

I was really excited to be asked to review this brand new ebook, ‘Back to Basics – Your Essential Guide to Make Do and Mend’ edited by the lovely Jen Gale. Jen has been somewhat in the forefront of the eco, thrifty, make-do-and-mend trend in the blogosphere and social media over the last few years. During that time, she has accumulated a mountain of practical experience (do take a look at her website, http://www.makedoandmend-able.co.uk, if you haven’t already) and connected with individuals with a wide variety of practical skills, many of whom contribute chapters to this ebook.

[Full disclosure: ‘Back to Basics – your essential guide to Make Do and Mend’ came to me free of charge as a review copy. Screenshots are used with permission. Any links provided are for interest and convenience, I don’t profit from them in any way. Jen is a twitter friend, and while I obviously wish her well with her project I have tried very hard to be fair and impartial in giving my opinions here.]

What’s in this book? Well, all kinds of things. Don’t know how to fix a puncture on your bike, or wire a plug? The instructions are here for you, alongside more ‘crafty’ tutorials on sewing skills – biased towards mending and altering – basic introductions for knitting and crochet, helpful hints on caring for your clothes and fabrics so they last you longer, tips on painting and re-upholstering furniture to refresh tired pieces without needing to buy new, and lots of other things besides.

This is intended to be an entry-level guide, and because it covers such a broad range of topics, some of the chapters will already be familiar territory to practical minded readers – that said, I did pick up a few extra little tips even in areas where I consider myself to be reasonably proficient (Tom Van Deijnen’s tutorial on darning knitwear is particularly good, as is Lauren Guthrie’s really comprehensive general overview and introduction to using and caring for your sewing machine).

Alongside these, there are a few chapters that cover what I would regard as more advanced-skill level making do and mending – Franki Campbell explains how to break down a garment and make a new sewing pattern from it so that it can be recreated (and possibly modified in the process), something which scares me enough – I’m a muddling-along standard home sewer who can make curtains, blinds, and the odd garment for myself; I can imagine it being rather baffling to the novice sewer.

There are little projects included with some of the chapters, too, and these can be a weakness of the book. Some are excellent, like this little crochet flower broach. On the other hand, the knitted dish cloth ‘project’ (no more than a sample square of garter stitch, which you are expected to source brand new cotton yarn for) was a bit less inspiring.

I think this is probably an inevitable consequence of a book put together in this way, from a variety of contributors. The focus, skill level, and quality of these chapters does vary, and on occasion it can make the whole feel a bit ‘bitty’ and unfocused. But that said there is some really excellent material here, and if you find even a handful of the chapters useful it may well turn out to be a good purchase for you.

Who is the ideal reader for this book? It might make an good gift for a teenager heading off to university or to their own home for the first time – a really modern housekeeping guide for the 21st Century young adult. Older readers, looking to (re)discover crafty, thrifty DIY skills may also find a lot to like here. It’s a very beautifully put-together ebook, and a lot of hard work has obviously gone into the design and photography.

“Back to Basics” is available in ebook (PDF) format only, priced at £8. You can find out more, and download it here.

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New Year, New Home – our plans for the garden

Posted on January 17, 2015 by Kate Watson

Crikey, we’re half way through January 2015 already – how did that happen?? It seems like only last week we arrived here, but it’s been over six months now since we moved, in the height of summer.

It’s going to be an exciting year for us, and hopefully plenty of opportunities to showcase new skills and techniques here on the blog, too! Those of you who read here regularly will know that we were forced by the HS2 rail project to move from our lovely little cottage near Banbury. We decided to bite the bullet and make a big move – the move to the South West that Hubby and I had always told ourselves we would make ‘one day’, when the right opportunity arose. I have to say I’d always suspected the ‘right time’ might well have ended up being be 20 or 30 years from now, when we were thinking about retirement, so while it was a scary move, and stretches us financially, I’m delighted that we find ourselves here in Cornwall now, while we’re still young (well, relatively, hah!) and fit and able to work and build a life here and contribute to our local community. Even if it means we’re skint working-age folk rather than comparatively well-off retirees!

After an initial 6 months doing temporary contract work to keep our heads above water, I’ve started a new, permanent job for the new year, closer to home and with saner hours (occasional days off!) which will hopefully allow me to draw breath from time to time and spend a little more time making, doing and writing too!

So, as today is one such day, I thought I’d share a little about the projects we have coming up here at our beautiful new home in the course of the next year.

In the garden –

We’re amazingly lucky to have five acres of land with our new home, and in due course we hope to slowly build it up into a productive smallholding. For the time being we’re renting the pasture land to our neighbours for their sheep to graze, while we concentrate our time, effort, and resources around the house and gardens.

Yes – gardens. I never thought I’d have gardens in the plural (well, if you ignore a scrap of front driveway!) but we have two, three if you count the old sheep fold where we’ve planted the orchard trees that we dug up and brought with us from our last home.

To the south of the house, sloping away gently, we have a triangular garden with Cornish hedges on both sides which is going to be our ‘pretty’ garden. It has gorgeous views over Bodmin Moor and will be perfect for relaxing in on summer evenings if we ever get any time to rest!

Hubby has dug a pond here for our fish, who are settling in nicely, but otherwise this patch of land is likely to have to take a back seat for a while while we concentrate on more productive projects! With a bit of time and attention (ten years or so should do it!) I have high hopes for it being an even more beautiful place to be.

To the west side, we have an almost square, level garden with the house to one side and Cornish hedges to the other three sides, which essentially makes it a walled garden and the most protected growing space we have. This is an important factor as we’re nearly 900ft up on the edge of Bodmin Moor, and the winter weather and winds here can be a bit ferocious!

This is going to be our kitchen garden, and as you can see the work has already started, the hens are settling in nicely, and the first three raised beds are planted with winter veggies.

We’re going to build a shed and a small seedling greenhouse here and add some more growing space as we go along. The soil is quite stony as we’re on granite and slate bedrock, but seems good and fertile so with a bit of luck and lots of patience and stone picking this should make for a lovely productive working garden. As long as we can keep the rabbits & mice at bay…

We plan to build a polytunnel outside the gardens to the side of the pasture paddock, to allow us to grow more tender plants like chillies, tomatoes, peppers and maybe even melons, and take even greater advantage of Cornwall’s lovely mild climate (well, by and large – it’s blummin’ chilly today!) and long growing season. The hens might even enjoy hanging out there in future winters, in the dry and out of the wind.

The hens are doing OK now, after a disaster back in November when a stoat broke into the run and slaughtered three of the five girls we’d brought with us from Banbury. Of course, it killed my favourite, Midge, and I was completely heartbroken over the whole thing. We managed to find four new pullets to make up the numbers and all of them seem to be getting on really well now.

We’ve had far less trouble than on any previous hen introductions so we’re obviously getting the hang of this process. The new girls all have their own characters and temperaments and seem very chilled out around Dave dog, which is lovely.

There’s so much to do, but it’s so exciting! I’ve got some chillies in the heated window sill propagator (and rapidly realising I need a much bigger one!) and the first have germinated during the past few days. It won’t be long before every window sill in the house is full to bursting with seedlings – at least they’re nice thick walls, over two feet of solid granite for the most part, so I have plenty of ledge space.

We missed out completely on last year’s growing season, which was torture. So even though we really should probably be focusing our time and efforts in other places, I refuse to let another whole growing year go by the wayside – it’s so very exciting to have seeds in compost again and to be seeing the very first green shoots of what should hopefully be our first great productive Cornish growing season!

It’s a very conscious decision to concentrate our time and expenditure on the productive aspects of the gardens first – after all, the kitchen garden will go some way to feeding us. Landscaping and decorative planting, no matter how attractive, doesn’t help keep the larder stocked or reduce our food bills. We’re very much doing this on a budget, too – our rather lovely pair of cold frames are made from the glass out of the shower cubicle we had to replace when we got here.

Over the next few blog posts I’ll share with you some of our plans for the house – especially the kitchen – and for our outbuildings. Buckle up – it’s going to be a busy year!

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Take A Seat – how to re-upholster a dining chair, for complete beginners

Posted on August 24, 2014 by Kate Watson

So your dining chairs are looking a little tatty. Perhaps the seat fabrics are stained, marked, torn, threadbare, or just looking rather dated and no longer suit your decor. Time to throw them out and start saving up for some new ones, perhaps? Don’t be silly! For a start, chairs are really expensive (I mean, easily £100 each for nice ones!). If the chair frame is still sound, then DIY re-upholstery or re-covering of the chair pads is a job which should be within the grasp of anyone with a few basic craft and DIY skills.

In order to do this job properly, you will require –

A chair or chairs in need of restoration
Staple-removing tool or tools
Heavy-duty staple gun suitable for upholstery tasks, and staples
Replacement covering fabric, of the mid to heavyweight upholstery type
New bottoming fabric (non-woven synthetic material)
Replacement seat foam (optional, see later)
Basic everyday tools such as scissors, screwdrivers, iron and ironing board
Adhesive spray and stain-repellant spray may also be useful

It is possible to cut corners on the equipment list, of course – you can remove staples using a flat-headed screw driver (not one you’re particularly fond of, as it will never be the same again!) and a reasonably heavy-duty desk stapler could be pressed into service instead of a staple gun, but having the right tools will make the job an awful lot easier and quicker, not to mention safer for you! A staple gun and hinged-type staple remover should set you back about £10 between them, so won’t break the bank.

I would definitely replace the seat foam if the chair is imported, or is older than the 1988 UK fire safety regulations, as upholstery foams before this date (and some of those still in use overseas) can be incredibly flammable. If you know your chairs are more recent than this, and the seat foam is in good condition, not stained or breaking down, then it’s reasonable to re-use what you have. This is what I’ve done in this tutorial, as I know the chairs are at most six or seven years old and were originally manufactured here in the UK. Obviously this is a DIY job for my own use, the chairs won’t be labelled as complying with the regulations after re-covering, and consequently will not be suitable for sale or for use in a furnished rented property.

I want these chairs to last me many more years, so I’m doing this properly – yes, you could just wrap an extra layer of fabric over what’s there already and staple it down, it’s a quick-and-dirty approach which will save you a lot of time and effort, but you will inevitably add bulk, particularly at the corners and underneath, and the seat pads may very well not sit properly afterwards. Stripping the seat pads down is pretty hard work and takes time, but for me it’s worth it in terms of the quality of the eventual finish.

Right, to work!

These are the chairs I’m re-upholstering. I bought them from eBay to match four I already have, but they are very stained and all my stain removal efforts have failed. If you turn your chair over, it’s very likely that you will find the seat pad held on by four screws through the base, one at each corner. Remove these and set the screws aside, you’ll need them again later.

Remove the seat pad and turn it over. The view that greets you will probably be a bit like this one, a sheet of bottoming cloth held on with staples all the way around. This is light non-woven fabric, generally, and while it’s tempting just to rip it off, you’re going to want to remove all the staples anyway, so you might as well get started. Leaving staples in situ is a tempting effort-saving decision (trust me, it will once you’ve taken a few out!) but will interfere with neat tidy fitting of the new fabrics later on, and may affect the way the seat pad fits back into the chair.

Personally I find having one of the wooden-handled, curved, pointy staple removing tools a real benefit, even though they’re quite expensive (expect to pay about £15 for a new one – but it will last you a lifetime) – I use it on the staples first, just to ‘break’ the back of them and make a little space in the centre. Then I use the jointed plastic handled tool, which grips the staples to pull them out evenly. You could save a little money and buy just one or the other – they will do the job on their own but the curved tool struggles sometimes when one side of the staple comes free first, and you’ll need pliers to pull out the other end. The plastic tool has a chunkier tip and is much less easy to squeeze under the tight staple to start with.

I mentioned you could use a screwdriver – well, you can, but it’s not the right tool for the job, you’ll damage the corners using it for leverage, and will require a lot more force to use, too. All of which means it’s a lot more likely to slip, and damage parts of the chair you want to keep. Or, you know, your fingers. Obviously you should keep all your fingers *behind* any tool you’re using like this (be it a screwdriver or a proper staple removing tool). Don’t say you haven’t been warned!

Once the bottoming fabric has been removed, you’ll find even more staples holding on the top fabric. You’ve guessed it, these all need to go too. In all, it’s quite likely there will be well over 100 staples in each seat. It’s a long old job and until you get the knack of it can easily take over an hour for each chair. But it’s worth it for the quality of the eventual result.

Finally, you’ll have all the fabric off the seats. Probably, what you’re left with will be a wooden (plywood or chipboard usually) board and a foam pad, which may or may not be glued together. If they’re not glued down, or you’re replacing the foam pad, then it may be worth turning the board the other way up before re-fitting, particularly if it’s chipboard and crumbling a little where the old staples have been. If you’re replacing the foam, it’s easiest to take one of the existing pads to a foam supplier and ask them to cut replacements the same size and shape for you – most will be happy to do this though they may charge you something to do it. I’m keeping the foam pads, because they’re relatively new and in good condition still.

You’ve probably chosen your replacement fabric already, and really anything could work, so let your imagination run wild! The fabric I have used is actually salvaged from a pair of heavy cotton curtains we found in the house when we got here. I’d taken them down and washed them as I didn’t like them where they were, but the subtle neutral check pattern makes a great seat and goes really well with the natural oak of the chair frames. And also, you know, it’s free, which is awesome!

If you’re buying fabrics to use, a thrifty option could be to have a look at the second hand curtains for sale in local charity shops, where you may find a real vintage bargain! Try to choose a fabric of a similar weight to the one that you’ve removed, as this should make the seat pad fit back into position best, without unexpected gaps or excessive thickness. If you’re buying new, don’t feel you need to restrict yourself to upholstery fabrics – for a little job like this, clothing fabrics like denim or a heavyweight woollen cloth could make great alternatives. Do bear in mind that a fabric with an obvious check or stripe, like mine, will show up any wonkiness and uneven tension in the fabric re-fitting much more than a fabric without!

Pre-wash, dry, and then carefully iron your fabric before cutting out. I hate ironing as much as the next person (in fact, I pretty much only ever iron at all if I’m doing a sewing or textiles project!) but do go to the trouble of doing this, it’s important I promise! Washing your fabric first should both shrink it, if necessary, and improve your chances of removing stains from it in the future, should you need to, without causing colour run.

Using the old seat fabric as a template, cut out your new seat covers. I prefer to cut a little larger, and to cut to square corners, without ‘scalloping’ them out. This just provides more of a margin of error for the fitting process! If there’s any risk of confusion, mark the ‘wrong’ side of your fabric clearly when you cut it out, to ensure it goes on the chair right-side-out! If your seat foam isn’t already glued down to the wood, consider using some spray adhesive to do this, as if the two are fixed in position already, it will make stretching the fabric over them much more straightforward.

Then, starting along the straightest edge of your seat pad, secure the fabric with your staple gun. The first side is simple, but of course it gets a bit trickier after that. Do the opposite side next, so that your fabric is nice and straight. While it *is* possible to stretch, hold, and staple the fabric on your own, this task is a lot easier if you can recruit a glamorous assistant to help you (hello, Hubby!).

You will want to pull the fabric as tight as you can, and this will curve and round-off the cut edges of the foam in the process. Work slowly and keep the tension even. I tend to work in a divide-the-difference pattern, placing each new staple in the centre of a gap, rather than trying to work along a line from one end to the other.

Then do the same with the two other sides, though you might find it easier to work on both sides alternately, rather than securing one side and then the other. Just keep checking your tension is even and appropriate as you go along, and don’t be nervous of taking staples out and trying again if you’re not happy with the result!

Once you’ve finished the sides, fold the corners over neatly and secure these too.

With a bit of luck, you’ll end up with seat pads that look a bit like this. Now just to finish the bottoms. You could re-use the bottoming cloths that you took off in the first place – if you managed to get them off without tearing – but they’ll look tatty and new non-woven fabric to replace them is very cheap (it’s usually available in black, grey, white, or beige and costs a couple of pounds a metre, so choose the one that will blend in best). You could even forget about it and just re-fit the seats as they are, but that will leave the raw edges of your covering fabric exposed and these will eventually fray.

A word to the wise – take it from me, and do not attempt to iron your bottoming fabric. Doing so (even on your iron’s lowest setting) will result in ruined fabric and a nasty sticky mess on the bottom of your iron. Do you really need to ask how I know this..?

Cut out the bottoming cloth using the old one as a template, and then staple this in place over the seat bottom, concealing all the rough edges and staples securing your top fabric as you do.

Mindful of why I had this job to do in the first place, I got out my trusty can of Scotchgard spray (other stain repellant products are available) and treated the re-upholstered seat pads before re-fitting them. This would also be a good time to make any repairs to the wooden chair frames, and oil, varnish, or even paint these if necessary.

Once everything is done, re-fit the seat pads using the screws you set aside at the beginning, and stand back and admire your handiwork! Aren’t they fine? I’ve only got another four to do, now!

Just consider the possibilities – old dining chairs in need of re-upholstery sell online and in general auctions for pennies on the pound compared to new ones. Doing the job yourself takes a little time and effort, but you can produce a really professional looking result, save a heap of money, and bring a great vintage feature into your home, too!

Still doubt that this is a beginner’s project? Well, these chairs are the first things I’ve ever upholstered. If I can do it, I have no doubt that you can, too!

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A Summer Fling – my new favourite gin, apple and elderflower cocktail

Posted on June 6, 2014 by Kate Watson

Being able to mix a decent drink is a very useful country skill – it brings a splash of sophistication to life when you don’t live somewhere where you only need to chuck a rock to hit three decent cocktail bars.

Anyway, I had to share this one with you – it was suggested to me by an old school friend (who, fortunately for him, is safely on the other side of the world where I can’t hold him responsible for the consequences!) and it’s such a beautiful, fresh taste of summer, that I’ve fallen rather in love with it.

You will require –

Gin – whichever nice one you usually drink (beggars can’t be choosers at the moment at our house, so it’s Aldi’s London Dry Gin, which is surprisingly decent!)
Home-made elderflower cordial (or bought, if you really must – but they’re in full flower right now, so what a perfect excuse to make a batch!)
Really good cloudy apple juice, the best you can get, ideally quite a crisp, dry one.
Ice

In a tumbler, place three or four cubes of ice. Pour in a measure of gin (or why not a double – go on, you’ve earned it!). Now add a splash of elderflower cordial – only a little one! Finally, top up with apple juice.

There, how easy was that?

This is absolutely gorgeous (and one to try even if you don’t think you like gin). The apple juice is the star here, and really defines the character, so the better your apple juice, the better the cocktail (anyway, I’m sure it counts as one of your five-a-day). The elderflower adds a subtle sweetness and a gorgeous floral bouquet, and the gin just sits discretely in the background with a delicate waft of juniper and a little citrus zing. Be warned, though, it does go down very easily!

A sinister thought has occurred to me, which is that it might be possible to concoct a related drink, made with Plymouth gin, Cornish cider and hedgerow elderflower cordial, and call it a ‘Westcountry Wrecker’… Some experimentation may be required!

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Elderflower Vinegar, From the Forager’s Kitchen by Fiona Bird – Cooking the Books, Week 22

Posted on June 5, 2014 by Kate Watson

No elderflower champagne for me this year (*sob*) but I refuse to miss out completely on the floral bounty of the season. Last year I made a very small experimental batch of elderflower vinegar – just stripped some flowers into a Kilner jar, topped up with cider vinegar, and forgot about it for a couple of weeks before straining it and putting it back into the bottles it came out of. I was delighted with the results, which captured the fresh elderflower fragrance remarkably – even more so, if it’s possible, than cordial or champagne do. It was a tiny batch, so I had very little to share around, but everyone who tried it seemed amazed by it.

So this year, obviously, I had to make a little more. Not as much as I would have liked, because it has to move house with us in a few weeks, but I thought I could just about justify a two litre batch… And then I thought, before diving straight in and just making it up as I went along like last year, I ought to have a look at the cookbooks…

I wasn’t really expecting to find anything, but The Forager’s Kitchen came up trumps – it has some remarkable infused vinegar suggestions, including violet vinegar (which is the recipe that first drew me in to this fabulous little book), so I shouldn’t really have been surprised I guess! Fiona’s elderflower vinegar is a fair bit more sophisticated than my efforts last year, with a double-infusion and the addition of a little lime zest. So here goes!

For a two litre batch, you will require –

60 elderflower heads (30 now, 30 later)
Two litres of cider vinegar
One lime
A 2l Kilner jar or similar

Pick 30 your elderflowers on a warm, dry, bright (and ideally sunny!) day.

Shake off any visible insect life, but don’t under any circumstances be tempted to wash them, as you’ll flush away all the beautiful flavour. Now you need to remove the tiny little flowers from the flower heads. Yes, I know it’s a pain, but sit down comfortably, and you’ll be done in about half an hour.

My technique is more like rubbing the flowers between my thumb and fingers than picking individual flowers, and once you’ve got the knack it’s surprising how quickly you can do it. The flowers will probably be crawling with tiny little black insects – if this bothers you, try not to look at them! (We all eat bugs all the time – even veggies and vegans! – you only have to look at the FDA permitted levels of contaminants in food products if you don’t believe me!)

Transfer all your tiny little flowers to a clean sterilised 2l jar, and top up with cider vinegar. Put the caps back on the empty bottles and put them safely to one side, you’ll want them again later.

With a vegetable peeler, peel the lime zest in strips, taking as little of the white pith as you can, and add this, too. Seal up the jar and put it somewhere nice and warm, shaking occasionally, for 10 days.

Don’t waste the rest of your lime, slice it up, and put it in a bag in the freezer. It’ll still go a treat in your gin & tonic!

After about ten days, pick yourself 30 more flower heads, remove the flowers as before, strain off the vinegar from the elderflowers and lime zest, and replace them with the freshly picked flowers. I wouldn’t worry about really fine filtering at this stage, a normal sieve ought to be fine. Put the jar back somewhere warm and repeat the occasional shaking for several days.

You’ll see that there’s quite a lot of pollen settled at the bottom of the jar. If you want a really clear vinegar, you’ll want to filter it finely before bottling. I suggest initially straining off the flowers, before passing the vinegar through a fine jelly bag or several layers of muslin. Once filtered, return the vinegar to the bottles it came from. I don’t bother to re-sterilise these, by and large, since they shouldn’t have had a chance to become contaminated since the vinegar was poured out, as long as they’ve been kept capped. Fiona advises using sterilised bottles, though, and she’s probably right!

The vinegar will keep in a cool larder cupboard for at least a year, if you can make it last that long!

**
The Forager’s Kitchen, by Fiona Bird
CICO Books, 2013.
ISBN 978-1-908862-61-7
Hard cover, 192 pages, full colour. RRP £16.99.

[Full disclosure: This is my book, which I bought. I have received no payment or sponsorship for this post, nor have I accepted a review copy. I do not have an amazon affiliate account and do not profit from any links provided.]

This is such an incredibly beautiful book that it’s easy to forget what a great resource it is for wild eating! It covers a huge range of foraging habitats and seasons, hedgerow to coastline.

There are plenty of foraging handbooks out there (I’ve reviewed a couple in the past) – what makes this book remarkable is the quality, inventiveness and sophistication of the recipes, all of which genuinely seem to respect and require the foraged ingredients. There is a freshness and originality about these recipes that I’ve rarely seen elsewhere and which makes me want to make them all, just as soon as I can wrap my grubby little forager’s mitts around the required ingredients!

If you’re at all interested in wild food (with the proviso that it really is UK-focused, and probably progressively less use the further afield you might be) go and buy this gorgeous little book!

‘Cooking the Books’ is my self-imposed blog challenge for 2014 – I’ll be trying to cook a new recipe from one of my (rather extensive!) collection of cookbooks once a week, write it up and review it. Wish me luck!

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There’s A Hole In My Kettle, Dear Liza… Well, fix it with Sugru!

Posted on March 23, 2014 by Kate Watson

The blog seems to have been very heavy on recipes since the new year – mostly because all I’ve managed to write most weeks is the Cooking the Books post (and, you know, not always that!). There’s a lot going on in our lives at the moment that I’m not really free to talk about just yet, but which has completely put a stop to the gardening I would normally be stuck into by this time of year (my window ledges are entirely bereft of their usual forest of seedlings, and sitting on my green fingers is such torture!). But this was never intended to be just a food blog, and, of course, life goes on.

Now, I’m sure you all know about Sugru by now – I waxed enthusiastic about it to my little sister last summer, only to discover she’d been an early convert (but had somehow neglected to mention the wonderful stuff to me?!), so I know I’m late to the party. But just in case you haven’t come across it, let me tell you a little bit about this wonderful stuff. Sugru is a mouldable putty, rather like play dough or blue tack. It comes out of a little sealed packet, and then you have 30 minutes to play with it before it starts to set. The Sugru then cures, in the air, at room temperature, in the next 24 hours (longer if it’s a particularly big piece), after which it is set permanently, with a silicone-rubber character.

So, what? Relatively slowly setting modeling clay doesn’t seem so exciting perhaps… Well, it bonds permanently to a very wide range of underlying materials (plastics, glass, metals, ceramics, fabrics, wood and so on), and will tolerate a wide range of temperatures from -50C to +180C, as well as being flexible, waterproof, electrically insulating… You get the idea, it’s clever stuff! [Full details on the Sugru website, here.]

Back in the summer, I used my first pack to finish my denim strap replacement up-cycle on a pair of flip flops. They held up extremely well to the wear and tear they were put through in the course of what was an unusually hot summer. I’m looking forward to wearing them again this year.

Some of the leftover from the pack, I used to mend and re-attach a cracked knob on our cooker. That repair has held up so well – and is so ‘seamless’ – that until I started writing this little post, I’d almost forgotten I’d ever mended it in the first place!

A few months ago, now, I noticed that our kettle had started leaking, apparently from the join between the metal body and a plastic viewing window set into it. We have very hard water here, so I suspect limescale got established in a little gap and slowly pushed it apart. For a while, it was just the odd drop or two when I boiled a big kettle of water, but then one day, at the end of January, there was rather a big puddle of rather hot water on the kitchen counter after I’d boiled the kettle. Obviously water and electrics are a great mix! I nearly chucked the kettle in the bin and went to buy a new one, but I do hate to throw things away that might still have some life in them – and after all, the kettle still ‘worked’… Then I remembered the Sugru, hiding in the fridge (refrigeration extends the shelf life of the product before use).

It seemed too good not to try – I mean, the worst that could happen was still the kettle ending up in the bin anyway. This is one of the reasons I love mending things so much – you can justify all manner of experimentation that you might hesitate to try on a working item for fear of breaking it. My plan was really quite simple – to make a Sugru gasket or seal for the plastic window, by pushing it into the gap all around the outside, and then the water wouldn’t be able to get out any more. So far, so obvious, right? I shared my plan with Hubby, who looked a little unconvinced and told me ‘not to make it look rubbish’ – well, there’s nothing like a vote of confidence from your nearest and dearest…

Now, the surface preparation instructions that come with the Sugru are very simple – they boil down to ‘make sure the surfaces you want the Sugru to bond to are clean and dry’. I admit, I didn’t do this carefully enough. I’d given the kettle a really good wash to remove any grease, and removed as much of the limescale as I could using vinegar. I gave it all a good dry with a tea towel but didn’t really think that there would probably be some residual water (and probably detergent) in the gap I was planning to seal. It turns out soapy water acts as a release agent for uncured Sugru. You have been warned!

The process was simple enough – roll out little lengths of Sugru, and stuff them into the gap. Then smooth off the surface (to avoid it ‘looking rubbish’). Problem being that around the lower left part of the window, the Sugru refused to adhere and kept falling out again. This was particularly vexing as I’m pretty sure this is where the worst of the leak was coming from! Eventually I gave up and peeled the Sugru away everywhere it wasn’t sticking, tidying up the edges with a putty knife, and left the rest to cure for 24 hours.

Fortunately, I had a second pack of red Sugru in my stash, or it would have been a funny multicoloured fix that might have upset Hubby’s ‘rubbishometer’!

On day two, with my second pack, I was able to complete the seal all the way around, without any obvious difficulty. I left it to cure for another 24 hours, and then couldn’t wait to test my repair.

Well, it works. You can see from the photo just below, taken a day or two ago – almost two months after the repair – there is a little bit of limescale visible in a couple of places around the repair. It does still leak *very* slightly – the odd drop of water manages to sneak through while the kettle is boiling energetically, and evaporates on the spot, so for my money, the repair is a success – no more water on the worktop! I’m pretty sure that if I’d waited for the kettle to be really dry (and, lesson learnt, I won’t make that mistake again!) then the repair would have been completely successful.

Will the leak get worse as time goes by? I don’t know yet – it may be that the limescale will continue to do its thing and will slowly push the gap wider. Then again, because the Sugru stays flexible after curing, it may be able to accomodate this without additional leakage. Anyway, in the meantime hopefully I will have worked out what replacement kettle might look best in my new kitchen…

And think, if only he had some Sugru, Henry could have fixed his bucket – mind you, I’ve never worked out how the straw was going to help – can any of you shed any light on the matter?

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Pick a Peck of Pickled Peppers – home-grown pickled chillies

Posted on November 16, 2013 by Kate Watson

The blog has been a bit neglected the past month! There’s been a lot going on just recently – most of it good, but which I can’t really talk about at the moment (The mystery! The suspense!).

A few weeks ago, the blog’s second birthday passed entirely un-marked, a fact which will come as no surprise at all to my close friends and family, who are all well used to their birthdays and significant anniversaries passing equally without notice! Anyway, a huge thank you to all of you who read and comment, thank you for taking the time and bearing with us though this quiet interlude!

Right oh, back to the hot and spicy business at hand!

Last weekend, we admitted the arrival of the colder weather and stripped the greenhouse chilli plants of all their fruit. The result was almost exactly 1 kg of mixed home-grown chillies, mostly ‘Vampire’, a mild flavoured mid-sized dark purple to red variety with beautiful purple-green foliage and purple flowers, and ‘twilight’, a fiendishly-hot small chilli which ripens from purple to red via white & yellow on a small-leafed plant.

Aren’t they gorgeous? Even I can’t eat that many fresh chillies before they go off, though. I considered making chilli sauce, but in the end settled on pickled chillies as more versatile to use down the line. And with all these gorgeous colours and varieties, it would have seemed a bit of a crime to put them in a food processor!

This recipe is based on one attributed to Michael Symon, from Michael Ruhlman’s blog, with a few modifications to suit the ingredients I had available. It’s really straightforward, and the results *look* stunningly pretty – it’s too early to say how they taste yet!

Wash your chillies carefully, inspect them and set aside any which are damaged or imperfect (you can always cook with these fresh, or process them and freeze in small batches) and then pack them into cold sterilised jars. Then fill each jar full of water, before tipping the water back out into a bowl or jug. Measure this volume – this will give you a good accurate estimate of the volume of pickling liquid required. In my case, using eight small jars and one large one, the volume was a bit over a litre.

For the brine, I combined –

700ml white wine vinegar
500ml water
2 1/2 tbsp sea salt
2 1/2 tbsp golden caster sugar (any sugar will do)

Obviously these volumes can be adjusted depending on how much pickling liquid you need! Mix these in a saucepan and start to warm, dissolving the sugar and salt, then add the following herbs and spices and bring to a good rolling boil –

Two bay leaves – you can leave these whole if only making one or two jars, but I broke them up into smaller pieces
Three cloves of garlic, sliced up likewise
2 tbsp whole coriander seed
2 tbsp whole black peppercorns
1 tsp whole cumin seed
1 tsp dried oregano

Once the brine is boiling, turn the heat down and simmer for 10 minutes.

Then, if you’re making a single large kilner-type jar of pickled chillies, you could just pour the whole volume of brine, spices and herbs over the top and seal up the jar.

I wanted to make sure the spices were evenly distributed between my eight small and one large jar, so I first strained the solids out and returned the brine to the saucepan to keep simmering.

This made it easy go share the spices and garlic out evenly between the jars with a spoon. Then just ladle the boiling hot brine into the jars, filling them all the way to the brim before sealing tightly with plastic-lined lids.

Once cool, refrigerate until use, or at this time of year in Northern climes you should be fine to store them in an unheated outbuilding, garage or shed. They’re ready to eat within a day or two but a few weeks in the pickle will only help develop the flavours. When you’re ready to use them, just slice or mince the chillies and use in cooking as you would fresh – obviously only in dishes that will tolerate a little bit of added acidity from the vinegar, most will – but beware, these are going to be an unpredictable bunch, and the little ones bite!

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In A Flap – flip-flop denim fabric strap upcycle

Posted on June 24, 2013 by Kate Watson

Summer is here (or so they say!). And whether you call them thongs or flip-flops, the three-point strap sandal is a mainstay of hot weather footwear. While I was getting a few bits and bobs in town the other day, I saw these fun flip-flops on a sale rack. I really want to like flip-flops, but I’m afraid they don’t like me! I can’t walk 100 yards in flip-flops with rubber or plastic toe posts without getting the most awful blisters between my toes. Ouchie!

So those straps were going to have to go. There’s always something faintly satisfying about a spot of wanton destruction, isn’t there? Push the straps through the sole and chop them off with a pair of stout scissors. Congratulations, you’ve taken a pair of perfectly good, new flip flops and rendered them completely useless. Time to get mending!

I was planning to make fabric straps for these flip-flops out of some recycled cotton jersey, but I couldn’t find anything in my old-clothes stash in an appropriate colour. What I did find was a pair of Hubby’s old jeans. On reflection, denim seemed like a rather great idea, and the colour was a good match for the psychedelic print on the soles, too.

Of course denim poses some problems that cotton jersey doesn’t, not least in it’s tendency to fray extensively. It’s also not famous for its stretchy characteristics, which means sizing will need to be more accurate, but I was pretty sure these were things that could be overcome.

First up, I rough cut a broad and a narrow strap for a ‘test fit’. The narrow strap is tied in a reef knot around the wide strap and acts as the toe post. Push the straps gently through the holes and support them temporarily with safety pins while you offer up the sizing. I tried the sandal on at this stage and showed it to Hubby to see what he thought. His verdict, ‘they’re quite, erm, rustic…’ felt a little bit short of an unqualified recommendation!

The principle seemed sound, though this mock-up stage proved one thing, which was that the narrow toe straps were literally going to fray away to nothing, and really quite quickly, too. Some reinforcement was going to be needed to avoid the whole thing coming apart!

Now, my sewing machine is a really very basic beast, more or less does straight stitch, zig-zag, not much else. But it has a rather neglected set of ‘special stitches’, one of which I admit I’ve never used in anger before today – it’s a sort of faintly-decorative compound zig-zag, which looked like it might do dual purpose for fray control while not being entirely unattractive! Well, it was worth a shot. A trial run on a narrow strap confirmed that I could run a length of the stitching, and then pull away the stray threads before trimming quite tight to the stitch line. The result seemed quite stable and robust. Excellent!

I chopped a rough rectangle of denim out of the leg of hubby’s discarded jeans. They were very well worn by the time they reached the end of their working life, so the denim is gorgeous and soft.

Using a ruler and cutting wheel, I sliced two wide straps 3cm wide, and two narrow straps about 1cm in width. If you don’t have a cutting wheel, mark the back and cut carefully, especially for the narrow straps.

I decided to go with a contrasting colour for the stitching to make a decorative detail out of it, and loaded up the machine with some bright yellow cotton.

Each wide strap takes two rows of stitches, as close as possible to the edges. The narrow straps get one row of stitches straight up the middle. If your machine doesn’t do a stitch like this, then a sensible width zig-zag is probably a good compromise.

Once the stitching is done, tease away at the threads outside the sewing, and gently pull it away until it ‘sticks’ in the stitching. Then, using a really sharp pair of scissors, trim the loose threads to within about 1mm of the edge of the stitching. This is all a little bit time consuming, but worth it in the end!

Now, all your straps are made, and ready to be assembled.

Tie the narrow straps in a reef knot around the approximate mid-point of the wide strap, and then feed all the ends through the appropriate holes. My denim isn’t an even colour because of the wear on it, so I used the darker end for the outside hole on both sandals, and the lighter end on the inside.

This is the experimental trying-on bit of the process. Adjust the straps until they’re all the right length and the fit is comfortable, using safety pins on the underside if necessary. Once you’ve know how long your straps need to be, it’s time to work out how to retain them. I’d considered the ‘tie a knot in it’ approach, and that seemed likely to work ok with the narrow toe strap, but didn’t seem as plausible for the thick straps.

Instead, I had a dig about in my button box and found six small stout little white buttons, just the right size for the recessed gaps in the bottom of the sandals.

For the toe strap, join both halves together with a horizontal row of stitches, before fixing the button between them, then trim the ends with about a cm spare and fold the straps over, securing the ends down again as firmly as you can.

For the broad straps, start by identifying the attachment point you need, secure your thread firmly and then sew the button into the centre of the strap. Trim the strap and then sew the corners down over the button, before securing the strap below the button into a round shank, wrapping a few times with the thread to help you hold the shape.

In essence, that’s it. Make the second sandal the same way, trying to get the strap lengths to match.

If you were just going to wear them indoors, you could probably leave it at that. I had in mind using a blob of hot glue both beneath and finally on top of the strap and button assembly to secure and stabilise the lot, and add some waterproofing and abrasion resistance to stop the first rough floor surface wearing the thread away and letting all the hard work come apart again. But then I remembered that I’ve finally got my hands on some Sugru, so I think I’m going to use a blob of that over the top (and possibly a cuff underneath) as the rubber texture seems likely to be nicely compatible with the rest of the sole. I’ll post final photos once I’ve done this (in the next few days, all being well!).

I can think of some possible variations (and having done this ‘make’, some I wish I’d thought of before I started!). Satin or grosgrain ribbon would make great straps (you’d want a matching pair in 25mm and 6mm widths, I would guess, and a metre of each will be plenty) – and might even be quite ‘dressy’, with the right choice colour and plain dark-coloured sandals. I suspect – though I haven’t tried this, so if you do, please let me know! – that you could just tie knots in the ends of the ribbons, embed the knots in a little ball of Sugru, and just sort of ‘squidge’ it into the recesses in the sole, reducing the whole make to a five or ten minute job. Hot glue would probably work pretty much the same, too (but don’t burn your fingers)! Next time I see a set of dirt cheap flip-flops in a pound shop or market, I’m definitely giving this variation a try!

I’m really thrilled with this, actually. These sandals are *comfortable*, and they look pretty cool too, though I say so myself. I’m definitely planning to take them on holiday, and I shan’t be one bit embarrassed by them by the pool – the finished effect is certainly more ‘handcrafted’ than ‘homemade’. So do give this a try, and please, let me know how you get on?

Read more from the Country Skills blog >>

Country Skills for Modern Life

Some of the cool and useful food, craft and sustainability skills that your grandparents knew, but probably didn't teach you!

Category Archives: Make-and-do

AFNOR flat-fold fabric face mask – a modified sewing technique, tutorial with instructions and photographs

Coping with lockdown differently – out with the new, in with the old?

Reviewed – “Back to Basics – Your Essential Guide to Make Do and Mend”

New Year, New Home – our plans for the garden

Take A Seat – how to re-upholster a dining chair, for complete beginners

A Summer Fling – my new favourite gin, apple and elderflower cocktail

Elderflower Vinegar, From the Forager’s Kitchen by Fiona Bird – Cooking the Books, Week 22

There’s A Hole In My Kettle, Dear Liza… Well, fix it with Sugru!

Pick a Peck of Pickled Peppers – home-grown pickled chillies

In A Flap – flip-flop denim fabric strap upcycle

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