Embroidery Grime Guard

Hello dear readers! Yes you are reading the right blog, yes I am writing my 4th post in as many days, what's going on?!! I have no idea!!!

Anyway, in between crochet stuff I like to cross-stitch, and I'm working on several cross-stitch projects at once (no surprises there eh ?!), but my largest one is a year long calendar stitch-a-long. I'm on a Facebook page of other people doing the same one and noticed loads of them have these cool covers to cover the edges of their work, where you hold it, to stop it getting all grubby - they are called grime guards. So of course I had no choice but to make one for myself.

I had this fabric in my stash which seemed perfect for the task ....

To hold my cross-stitch when it's a large piece of material, I use q-snaps instead of a hoop. Makes your hand cramp up less than a large hoop, although slightly more fiddly to move around your work. But I do like it for the larger pieces.

I measured around my frame : it was 32", so my grime guard would need to be that long, and I wanted it to come about 2" over the front and another 2" over the back. So without seam allowances I needed a long strip of fabric 32"x4".

My fabric piece wasn't long enough so I needed to make it out of two strips each about 16" long. Each strip had a 0.5" seam allowance on either short end, and a 1" seam allowance along either long edge, meaning my strips were 17" x 6".

I placed the strips wrong sides together and sewed along each short end with a 0.5" seam allowance, then pressed the seams open.

So now I had a continuous loop of material, which I tried over the circumference of my frame for size.

It needs to be a bit loose, if it's too neat a fit it's too hard to get on and off.

I then turned one long edge in by 0.5", and in again by another 0.5", pinned it in place, and sewed all the way round, leaving a gap of around an inch - this will be used to get the elastic in.

I repeated the hemming in the same way along the other long edge. Now I had a nice neatly hemmed loop ready to thread in the elastic. Ok maybe not the neatest hem ever but it's all going to be scrunched in with elastic anyway so it's not a problem.

I used a little safety pin to feed the elastic through, pulled it in quite a way, then secured the end with a knot. I did this on both sides. I checked it for fit and adjusted it a bit to make it tighter, and then sewed the hems closed where the elastic had gone in.

Hurray, my cross-stitch will be grimy no more :)

Jillxxxx