When, in the previous FoF, I showed you the RSN online course Mr Mabel got me for Christmas, it reminded me that I hadn’t actually let you know how I far I’d got with the RSN online course I succumbed to last summer: box making. Well, I finished it! (Don’t look so surprised…)

My one and only update on this project (other than showing you the kit when it arrived) consisted of some of the card parts covered in yellow fabric using sticky tape, and one of the false floor supports attached using ladder stitch. In a bid to improve the neatness of my ladder stitching, as well as the curved needle that came with the kit I tried two different ones from my stash (one larger & thinner, one the same thickness but smaller), but it didn’t seem to have much of an effect. The kit needle was marginally more comfortable to use than the others, so I stuck with that as I attached the other false floor supports.

The next step was attaching the parts that form the inner box. First two sides, then the bottom (which I started to attach the wrong way round – the inner box has all the messy sides on the outside and the nice covered sides on the inside, which got me muddled; fortunately I noticed in time). Fitting those first parts together is very fiddly, as they all flap about and you need about three hands to keep everything in position while sewing them to each other. Fastening the sewing thread on in the corners was tricky, too: the needle gets sticky from the tape underneath the fabric and sometimes the corners come undone when pulling the needle through! But with a lot of patience I eventually had the inner box assembled.

Finally I got to the flowered fabric! This time, because I wanted to try both techniques shown in the course videos, I chose to lace the fabric around the card pieces instead of using sticky tape. Using my mellor (a laying tool or really big blunt needle would work as well) to tighten up the stitches helped to get the fabric nice and taut, but once again I found it very difficult to get it folded round the card on the grain.

In between the lacing and subsequent assembling I felt I needed the occasional change, so I worked on the embroidery that would decorate the top of the lid. It is the word Threads in stem stitch, embellished with a little sprig of greenery using lazy daisies. In the original it is done entirely in dark green, but because that looked a little bit dull I added some highlights in bright yellow to echo the inside of the box.

Once all the bits for the outer box had been laced, it was on to assembly. As with the inner box, you start with two sides and then add the bottom. Then the process differs, because you assemble the rest of the outer box around the inner box. They are meant to be such a snug fit that if you completed the outer box first, you wouldn’t be able to get the inner box inside it.

Well, it was snug all right. Whether because I had wrapped the yellow fabric around the card too bulkily, or whether my sewing together hadn’t been quite accurate enough, it was a squash to attach the remaining two sides. Still, I got the thing together fairly tidily, in spite of cat hair trying to inveigle itself into the seams. I was particularly pleased with the look of the bottom, with all the bits fitting rather neatly together!

But that was not the end of it – the tops of the inner and outer box had to be ladder stitched together all round. For extra strength I used shorter stitches near the corners, as they seemed a bit strained, but otherwise I tried to get the stitches as equal as possible. As you can see that didn’t always work; if I’d been really committed I suppose I would have unpicked and re-stitched, but by then I had done such an awful lot of ladder stitching that I didn’t.

Then came the false floor, which included the new challenge of incorporating ribbon tabs with which to lift it out of the box. These tabs were first held in place with some double sided tape, and then more securely attached by ladder stitching through them when sewing both halves of the floor together. And then it was time to see whether the floor fitted. Fortunately it did .

Time to put the lid together. More ladder stitching! The smaller inner lid and the larger outer lid are attached wrong sides together (forming a lip which holds the lid on securely), and the embroidery (laced over padded card) is sewn onto the top of the outer lid. I tried to place everything as symmetrically as possible, but I’m sure there is a bit of variation in the width of the various borders. Still, people are unlikely to take a tape measure out when I show them the box…

And here it is, the completed box; lid on, lid off, floor in, floor out, and with cat.

So what’s the final verdict? About the course – great fun, good informative videos, and a well-presented kit. About the box? Well, let’s say I’m not unhappy with it . Measured against the Diploma assessment criteria a fellow RSN student kindly let me have a look at, it’s rubbish. The fabric grain is all over the place, the sticky tape came undone too quickly and frequent re-pulling caused fraying and grubbiness, and it was such a squash getting the inner box sewn into the outer one that the card bent a little in one place, making the fabric go slightly slack (fortunately right in a corner and not very noticeable in the finished box). There is some not-quite-exact placement of the support bits, uneven ladder stitches, and visible stitching on the exposed part of one of the corners of the lid. On the other hand, the stitching definitely got better over time, and I have got a sturdy and quite attractive box. On the whole it was a great learning process, but oh boy was it a good decision not to go for the complicated curved box I was so tempted by!