I started making my box a week ago, it’s for my wedding album. When I last posted about it on Sunday, I just had the basic box made. Well, I’ve been stitching away most evenings and I have now finished the main box, very excited and pleased with it so far!

I lined the box with silk dupion which was left over from a wedding dress I made. The card is off cuts of mount board from my friendly picture framer! It is made in a similar way as the main box, lacing the base and then the four sides in a line. However, the sides hold the base in place, they don’t need stitching together. With a drop down lid, the lining sides should be level with the box sides, this certainly made it much easier to measure the card as I just cut it to the right width and then held it in place whilst I drew a line level with the box. I then just had to slip stitch the top edges together. It made such a difference to get the lining in, all of a sudden I had a box!

When making a box like this, you have to measure as you go along in a certain order, rather than calculating everything at the beginning. My next stage was the sides of the lid, I found it quite difficult to know how much ‘ease’ to allow, as I didn’t want the lid so loose it fell off, but equally I didn’t want it so snug the silks were damaged. In the end I allowed a couple of millimetres extra. The sides are covered with one piece of silk, rather than lining it separately. It was quite fiddly to stitch as you have to back stitch it whilst holding it taut at a 45 degree angle, so the line of stitches is on the inside, not the top, also allowing the lining to lie flatter inside the box. You can see this on the photo. It wasn’t until I could sit the sides over the box that I knew I’d got the size right!

The sides were then measured in order to cut the top so it would sit neatly. I carefully positioned the heart in the centre, pinning into the edge of the board before lacing the centre first to ensure the heart didn’t move. It was then fairly easy to slip stitch the top to the sides.

I wondered about lining the lid in the ivory, the silk and lace heart for the inside did look rather nice on ivory, but my daughter pointed out that it would be easier to get a neat finish with a red background, she was right!

I cheated slightly with the inner heart, I slip-stitched it on with gold thread, couching a gold edge round at the same time. On the outside I’d slip-stitch it on first and then couched the gold edge afterwards. Stitching it in one go made it easier to get a neat start and finish, it probably won’t be as robust a seam, but I felt it would be sufficient on the inside.

This evening I’ve just laced the heart onto mount board for the lid lining. The instructions say glue in the middle and then stitch a few securing stitches in the corner. It does say this is difficult…well I couldn’t get a stitch in. I tried a curved needle, a straight needle from the outside, my last try was to lift the lining out (very sticky!) and put some loose stitches from the outside of the box, through to the inside and then to the corners of the lining, the idea being that they could then be tightened as I lowered the lid, no that didn’t work either. So any ideas gratefully accepted, at the moment I’ve left it with a weight on it, hoping the glue will hold it firm enough!

The next stage is the ‘fittings’, a tray to sit inside the box, possibly with a divider and lid, depending on how adventurous I’m feeling!