“What is a cahon?” I hear you cry. It’s a box that you sit on and drum with a hole on one side.
A cahon can also double up nicely as a seat/table when camping. Can you spot it?
How do I know this? Cos last year Long Suffering Husband (LSH) bought one because even though I have manage to severely curb his string instrument purchases he is still addicted to buying instruments for Essential Morris Dancing Reasons (EMDR).
It flat packs, for easy carrying. I even found LSH a tote bag we already had to put it in (one made by yours truly way back when).
But life in our household is never that simple. Next up LSH acquired a foot pedal for said cahon (an essential accessory for all those who want to Drum ‘N Strum). And then he decided he needed to carry his amp around too. The amp will fit inside the cahon, but not in the bag alongside the cahon. So, the need for a specialist cahon bag was established. And that is when the fun started. ..
First up, the fabric. Good little stashbuster that I am, I suggested that I use a denim from my stash that I bought online yonks ago and never used, as when it came it wasn’t quite expected. One side is orange, one side is yellow, both quite in your face kind of shades. My thought was that the orange side would show the dirt less, but LSH preferred the yellow, because EMDR meant the ideal colour for the bag was green, and yellow was closer to that.
In the end I screen printed it, due to mental wincing at how much a light yellow bag would show up the dirt. First with green squares (the screen from the boys trousers), and then with leaves over the top (oak leaves would’ve been better, but the sycamore screen I had was deemed acceptable and suitable autumnal colours were approved).
Next up, high on my previous quilting success (and with the left over batting burning a hole in my stash, plus some left over burgndy polycotton, which was ok’d for the inside), I decided to quilt it. First the base (which I didn’t bother to screenprint cos it will hardly be on show much). It came out quite nicely, if I do say so myself, with a grid of inch squares mimicing the squares screen.
Then, I waxed it, to make it more weather proof. Thread Theory have blogged several times about Otter Wax. I was intrigued and this seemed the project to try it out on. I couldn’t get Otter Wax in the UK so I used Greenland Wax instead, as it seemed to be very similar and surely Greenlanders must know a thing or two about making things water proof? The whole family had fun using a hairdryer to melt it into the fabric (we really know how to have fun in our house) and then dropping water on it to check out how well it worked. (That last pic, bottom right, shows the difference between untreated and treated fabric, impressive eh).
And then I tried to quilt much larger piece that would be the sides. Despite basting it in place all properly, it started slipping and my lines wouldn’t stay straight and Morris Dance Out Season (yes, there are seasons, like in Sportsing, they dtend to practice in the winter and inflict themselves on entertain the public in the summer months) was over, so it got Put On One Side.
Some time later, when LSH requested it be finished for his birthday, it got mentally moved up the To Do List When he started complaining about having to lug the cahon to and from practices dropping hints about Buying A Cahon Bag, I a) cursed him for fooling me into making one when you could buy one and b) resolved to finish this one so as to not have wasted all the effort so far. I didn’t quite manage it for his birthday, but close enough.
Anyway, for Quilting Attmept 2, with a fresh pair of eyes after several months break, I decided to ditch the regular squares, that made any deviation from the plan show up as a glaring mistake, and instead adopted a more random approach, which I called “aim for the biggest gap” and that took the pressure off. I also took the executive decision to ignore any creases that had been sewn into the fabric. So don’t show this post to any Proper Quilters. Finally, some shoulder aching time later it was done. Well, except for the bit when I realised I didn’t have enough fabric prepped for the top and had to print, wax and quilt another bit of cloth. Which, with practice under my belt and a smaller piece of fabric, came out much better, but left me resolved Never To Quilt Again.
Next up, an exciting How The Bag Was Made From the Painstakingly Prepared Fabric post. Bet your excited now, eh?