Boxes
Postcard box
Well, that is what I keep in it! You can adjust the size for anything you need to store. The outside of the box is rigid plastic canvas, lined with fabric covered card. Mine is made from 6 squares of plastic canvas measuring 18 cm along the sides.
If you have a cross stitch chart that fits your canvas, you can make your box from pictures. I got out a book of canvas work stitches & some left over tapestry yarns & tried them out at random. NB: leave the outside strand of each piece un-worked. Try this link for some stitches to use on canvas.
To make the box up:
If you have a cross stitch chart that fits your canvas, you can make your box from pictures. I got out a book of canvas work stitches & some left over tapestry yarns & tried them out at random. NB: leave the outside strand of each piece un-worked. Try this link for some stitches to use on canvas.
To make the box up:
- Join the sides using long legged cross stitch
- Join the bottom all round the lower edge of the sides
- Edge the lid on 3 sides with long legged cross stitch, then make the hinge by sewing long legged cross stitch through the final edge of the lid & one of the sides.
- Finish the other 3 top edges with long legged cross stitch.
- To line the box, cut pieces of card to size for each side, cover with fabric & sew or glue in place. Mine are hemmed with sewing cotton where it shows & glued where it is hard to reach & no one will see.
- I have fixed some additional "struts" of covered card in a couple places across the width of the box to stop the postcards sliding around too much.
Pencil & brush box
This is a variation on the postcard box, except:
- The brush section is a piece of plastic canvas rolled into cylinder. After you have attached the brush slots at the sides, line the cylinder with fabric, & edge round the top with long legged cross stitch. The top face of the lower section is covered in felt. Sew the cylinder onto the lower section.
- The brush slots on the sides are made from garter stitch to make it firm & stop it from curling. Cast on however many stitches you need for the height of the section you are covering. Knit until you have enough fabric to hold a brush, change colour and repeat.
- Sew down the joins in colour through the canvas, keeping the rows of stitches close together to make the slots shown in the pictures.
- The lower section has division made from covered plastic canvas. This is partly to give strength, & partly to keep the content organised. Keeping rigid brushes & pencils in the sides also gives strength You can see that the internal divisions are a little bent. This doesn't seem to be a problem - it has been that way for several years. It could be cured by using some additional support, e.g. wire or a piece of skewer, but as you can see I haven't bothered.