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The sewing skills required in soft furnishings are few. Anyone with a basic grounding in sewing should be able to master them, and someone who has tackled the far more intricate work of dress making will find soft furnishing relatively easy. There are many kinds of stitches that can be used to make soft furnishings. Tracking is a quick temporary stitch for holding together two or more pieces of fabric before the final stitching is put in, but can often be omitted if the fitting and pinning stages are carefully done. Cut a short length of thread, too much becomes easily knotted, and make a small backstitch at the start of the line for tracking. Sew through both or all pieces of fabric, along the line where the final stitching is to be.

Push the needle down through the fabric and back towards you in a single movement, forming stitches about a centimeter long. Pull the needle back out of the fabric until the thread is taut, but don’t pull the fabric out of shape. At the end, sew a couple of times through the fabric and cut the thread. When you have completed your final sewing you can cut the tacking at any point and pull it out leaving no trace. An alternative to this is the quicker uneven tacking, particularly useful in curtain making where large expenses of material are being dealt with. For the first stitch, take the needle along 2cm, form of stitch about 5mm long, then move along another 2cm to repeat the stitch.

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Patchwork is often used as the basis for quilting. Patchwork developed not least as an economy measure for using up scraps of fabric, but its homely charm led to its development into a stylish craft. Used in conjunction with quilting, the patterns made by the arrangement of patches can be the basis of sewing lines so that each patch has a contoured shape. This helps to show up the selection of both pattern and fabric. In some areas, especially North America, patchwork quilting became something of a social activity, particularly at quilting bees where women gathered to practice their craft. Designs unique to certain regions evolved. Before embarking on anything elaborate, it is best to start with a simple pattern of squares, rectangles or hexagons the hexagon being the simplest with the least acute angles.

You can get metal and plastic master shapes or templates from craft shops and department stores. Or make your own from stout card, measured and cut with extreme accuracy. Window templates are useful for placing over a patterned fabric to mask off the exact area that will show. The outer edge of the window template is the edge of the scam allowance. The character of the patchwork will depend to a large extent on the fabrics you choose the way you arrange the different colors and textures. It is best to use fabrics of similar weight, and to avoid stretchy or easily frayed ones. If you plan to wash the quilt, remember to keep to washable and colorfast materials.

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Try to overestimate what you need and then fit it in with the shape of your room. Built in storage will hold far more than the conventional chest of drawers, etc. but make sure it’s not going to look like an afterthought. Remember you’ll probably have to store spare blankets here too, as well as clothes and hobbies. You could consider covering your cupboard doors with material, perhaps to match your curtains, bed spread or wallpaper. If you are short of space try a bed base with drawers in it recessed handles are, of course, essential. A lot of bedside junk is rather unsightly so you may want something other than open shelving by your bed. Shelves directly above the bed must be at least 1 m higher or you will be forever hitting your head on them. Well planned storage can give the most hectic household a serene and smoothly run air. To have a place for everything, most people need twice as much storage as they think, even if they’re strong minded enough to get rid of things that are never used.

So, avoiding preconceptions, decide if you need something fixed permanently or movable, what you need to store, in what rooms, how various storage schemes might affect those rooms, and how much you can afford. Here are a few guidelines: allow children at least as much storage as adults; razors and medicines should be stored out of reach of children; you’ll need summer storage for eiderdowns and blankets; cups should be stored resting on their sides; brooms and the vacuum cleaner needn’t be stored in the kitchen after all, you use them everywhere.

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