Wool Blanket Cushion WIP is Finished!!

I had a very enjoyable evening on Monday and finished my cushion made from woollen blanket scraps.

Above shows one of the flowers that I showed last weekend half stitched.  I love french knots, have I said that before?

This little birdie is a design which I came up with a couple of years ago for the Quilt Around the World Swap and has featured on several felt notebook covers.  I sold one of those books last week on Esty.

Lots of shapes and textured stitches.

I was sad when I ran out of room to add anything else and I had to stop the fun of actually making this cushion.

I have kept the back of the cushion quite simple with a double flap opening which has been edged with two rows of running stitch using purple wool.  The backing is made out of a lovely lilac woollen blanket which I managed to find.

So......drum roll please..........

I am sooooooo pleased with how this has turned out.  I put the edging on because at the workshop I could not find a piece of fabric the right for a cushion and I did not fully know what I was going to be making anyway.  I think it frames it and shows up the colours.

 

I have some scraps left and the lilac blanket which I found so I think another blankety based item will be in the pipeline.  I thought another cushion might be a bit much........any ideas?

I think the main attraction of this project is the hand stitching, which is great for evenings in front of the fire!

Many thanks for all of the lovely comments on the WIP post for this cushion and the response on Pinterest too.

xx

 



Wool Blanket - WIP

Well it is Saturday and Sophie has been dropped off at a Brownie holiday weekend and we do not pick her up until Monday.  So as promised here I am with my first half-term post.  The above shows a wool blanket cushion that I started at an Embroiderers Guild day workshop last yea,r just before my Dad died, and I never went back to it.  So last night I dug it out and did quite a bit to it.

I love hand stitching and especially french knots.  There is no particular design plan to this at all but just following the guidance and advice of Madeline Millington who ran the workshop and specialises in items made from recycled wool blankets.

I did have some scraps which I had bought from her when she exhibited at Westpoint in Exeter some years ago, so I have always liked her work.

The main cushion is made up of a crazy patchwork style base and then shapes are hand stitched on top using a variety of stitches.  Plenty of stitches too, this is also a good way of using up odds and ends of knitting wool too.

I do have a Bigshot and a few dies that will cut fabric so when I got home I cut a few shapes using the machine but on the day of the workshop I hand cut some random shapes as well.  

 This is still very much a work in progress and along with my Chookyblue Swap item I hope to complete both if these this coming week.  I like the thickness, colours and randomness of this cushion and the fact that you can simply make it up as you go along and use such a wide variety of wools and stitches.

Great fun!!

 

Crochet and Flower Loom Cushion

I will confess to staying up last night until I had finished this cushion.

This is the first round item I have crocheted and regular readers will know that I am trying to teach myself.  I made this up as I went along and experts may well spot mistakes but on the whole yours truly is a bit chuffed with this!  I started by looking on YouTube and found some clips showing how to crochet in a circle.  I was going to make some dish cloths. I used 100% cotton wool and kept crocheting.  I was on holiday so I could not buy any more as I could not find a wool shop.  I decided to stop once the circle looked right on a chair.  began the back and then.....ran out.  So the back has to colour rounds added on the edge.  I like it.

I then waited until I got home to carry on. 

I did start to crochet some flowers but saw my flower loom and changed my mind.  There is a tutorial for using a flower loom if you have not tried it before.  Glover make a range or buy a child's flower loom kit (I did this to try it out and then my Mum gave me her looms)  They are ideal for making in front of the TV in the evening.  Thank goodness for CSI Miami/New York/Las Vegas!

You need plenty of loops and then careful stitching together so that it does not fall apart when it is taken off the loom.

I thought that it needed perhaps a bit more detail on the front so a few hand stitches in wool using french knots and chain stitch were added.  I decided to make each section look different.

I crochet a flower to go on the back.  I am going to make some more of these.  I used the instructions featured in issue three of Mollie Makes, so not my usual pattern,I did get a bit muddled.  I like the final shape, it just took a bit of doing.

My projects are usually fairly well planned but on this occasion the thought of needing a round cushion pad had not registered with me so I had to make one and I think that it could have been a bit bigger.  I needed to really stuff it out but I think that more width was needed.

Many cushions go flat with use (in our house anyway) so it will take a bit of time before this cushion will meet the same fate!

So, using two not entirely identical circles, a cushion pad that is not quite the right size,some way of putting it together was needed.  I stitched and stuffed the cushion pad but did not stitch up the opening.  I then pinned the two crochet circles together.  A bit of fiddling about was needed here.  Using wool and a 4mm crochet hook I decided to literally crochet the cover together using single crochet.  I used green wool for this.

Then before crocheting the gap up I put more stuffing in the pad to really try and make the cover fit better, then stitched up the pad and crochet the rest of the cover opening.

Swapping to pink wool and edging was needed.  So using pink and 4mm hook again I chained 4 and then popped the end into the 3rd/4th chain along to give the loop.

It looks better with just this bit of edging.

This is not perfect (I am not even sure it is entirely round) but I really am pleased with this.  I actually enjoyed the "what shall I do now" approach to this cushion, in fact that is what made it one of the most enjoyable things I have made for some time.

What next?

Well, I did buy a pattern from Sarah London to make a Granny Square tunic.  Definitely a dark winter evening project.  Also maybe another woollen item where some embroidery an be included.

I am off to find the ideal spot for my new creation.

xx

Patchwork "Flower" cushions are finished........Amended title

Amendment:  I am a twit!  I have another cushion on the go but these are clearly patchwork NOT crochet cushions!  Sorry about that, I was writing two posts and got myself in a muddle.  The crochet cushion needs a bit more stuffing then I shall post it here. 

I did start these cushions before I went away on holiday.  On Wednesday I went to my sewing group to finish them.  I wanted to make something brighter and with blocks and stripes of colour.  The sofa is a green and the pink and white blends in with some other features in the living room.

I used cotton quilting fabric and a simple flap opening at the back.  The covers needed to fit the cushion pads that we already had rather than buying more, which I am trying to avoid.

The top one was made a couple of weeks after the other two so it seems to be a slightly snugger fit(?) not sure why but no one here noticed when I brought them home!

I am really pleased with the way that they have turned out.  I simply planned them as I went along.  I wanted them to be simple and not too fussy.  Blocks of colour with a little bit of patchwork.

These are quite large cushions at 18" square each.  Nice duck down ones which have lasted and lasted, well worth the money when I bought them 5+ years ago.

There were two smaller cushions on our sofa but I have decided to see how we go with just these three as the other two often ended up on the floor and not used on the sofa.  They could always go on the futon in the attic. 

I have two more projects cut out and ready to roll.  Only about a week to go so I had better get my skates on as work for net term is now filtering through already!

xx

Cushion Comforts - Purple

I have taken part in a couple of ill fated patchwork swaps and they both happened to be in purple. So these squares have been hanging around for a while. So, whilst trying to explain what a 9 patch cushion was to a student I decided to finally make these squares into a cushion. It will live up in the attic conversion which has my sewing cabinet in it and is sort of called the "sewing room" and is it only a question of time before Toffy sits on it!

The sections met up quite well and I used some purple thread and some of the built in stitches to stitch down the seams to add a little bit of detail.

This make goes towards my March OPAM makes of which there have not been many finishes due to most projects at the moment not being very fast to finish.

I made a corsage too but the picture will not come out very well so I shall add that tomorrow.

Many thanks for visiting.

xx