English Paper Piecing Cushion

As you can see I have finished the paper pieced cushion. It was made up of three shapes - decagons [10 sides], polygons [5 sides] and elongated hexagons [6 sides]. My intention was to be very neat and not show any of the stitches [the shapes were all hand stitched together], but I'm afraid I didn't succeed. I tried a few different ways of stitching them together [tutorials can be found on Pinterest] .I'm not sure if I have a favourite technique, I think it all depended on the access to a particular bit, for instance it is much easier to sew two small shapes together than when there are large pieces to join.

It was made from a pack of 5" charming squares which determined the size of the cushion.

The fabric is called "Enchanted Forest" by Lewis and Irene. I bought a fat quarter the same as some of the squares and made an envelope type cushion [hate putting zips in]. There were a few blue scraps left so I edged the overlap, which made it slightly bigger which was better.

50 Shades of White and Peacock Cushions

I've made up my fifty shades of white applique into a cushion

and also my white embroidered peacock is also a cushion.

Because it is white on white it doesn't show up very well so I messed about with the image just to try and make the embroidery stand out.

Three Cushions

My daughter Emma had a request for cushions and this is the result. She provided a picture of a vintage design with altered colours which I redrew from scratch and then had fabric printed at Spoonflower. [I'll not be selling this fabric as it's very similar to the original design.]

The other cushion is applique and embroidery. I purchased plain grey and white fabrics but couldn't find any for the other colours quickly so I had to dye fabric. I think I used a small ruler to make the straight lines on the orange fabric. The black lines are the embroidery, couching.

There are some things I don't like about the cushion, for example the fusible web shows a pattern through the white fabric........

My daughter is delighted with the cushions.

All Queens Cushion

Another cushion finished. I created the queen design quite a while ago when I was at college and I've had a inkjet transfer print of it hanging around for ages so I thought I would use it. It was inspired by queens on playing cards. I also put on beads around some of their necks.

Above is the fabric, below is the original design, quite a bit brighter.

The same design is available on a t-shirt from my zazzle shop

If you would like this design on anything else that zazzle sell just let me know and I will see how it fits - no obligation to buy.

Vintage Chair Back Cover Cushion

This is a cushion I made up using what should have been a chair back cover. It is vintage linen which has the design ready traced on and it used to belong to my Grandma at one time. The original pattern was a magazine offer and it gives suggestions on colours and how to embroider it. I did embroider a cushion, also part of this set, see the photo at the bottom, although I did not use the selected colour scheme. I wanted to use a different method for the chair back cover and as I would never use them as chair back covers I thought a cushion would be nice. I have not done any hand embroidery on it. To start with I coloured the flowers and leaves in with Berol fabric pens, but the choice of colours was limited and I've lost the darker green, so the leaves were the done with the lighter green. I then went over parts of the design with free hand machine embroidery. There was a wavy traced line at the lower end for shaping the cover, I used a fancy decorative machine stitch on top of this. I thought the blue traced lines would wash out but they haven't, perhaps vintage ones don't?

below is the cushion I hand embroidered, it took years to do which is one reason why I wanted to do a quicker technique on the cover.

Ladybird Cushion, London and Norfolk

I've not been around for the last week, hence no new posts. I've been to London to visit my daughter and husband and I took this cushion for them. The ladybird and flower was a screen print which I had done some time ago, but my daughter said she liked it so I thought I would 'do' something with it. I made a stencil out of an A4 plastic pocket and used a hand made screen to make the print. The screen was made from a wooden frame and some old plain net curtain. I beaded the spots and eye and then quilted it with wadding and backing fabric. Then I used wonder under to attach it to some vintage fabric and finished with hand embroidery [knotted cretan] around the edges to make sure it will stay on. And then made it into a cushion.

While we were in London we went to the Natural History Museum - I love looking at the building, both in and out as much as the things in it. The decorative ceiling for instance, click for a better view [although the photo is not the best you will get a good idea of how intricate it is].

This rabbit was part of the staircase.

We also walked around the Westminster area, I couldn't resist a photo taken through the railings of the Houses of Parliament.

I have and will be putting more photos on flickr

We had a couple of rain-free beautiful sunny warm days! in Norfolk after visiting London, this scene was at Happisburgh.

Back home and its raining again........

Tea for Two Cushion and CPS Article

Another cushion for my conservatory. I used a tea towel for the background fabric and more of the fabrics that I used on the last cushion for the applique. After bonding and machine stitching, I hand embroidered around all parts using a variety of stitches.

I didn't have a photo of my article in Cloth Paper Scissors that I told you about yesterday but I took some today.

Cushion and TAST 15

I've been making a cushion this week for my new conservatory. I didn't want to buy any new fabrics so I used fabrics from my stash. The background fabric is quite old but the patterned fabrics I bought a couple of months ago from Fat Quarters,  a dream shop for quilters [hard to resist buying something even though I'm not a quilter]. They were just a small pack of coordinating fabrics and they go really well together. I appliqued the fabrics together using 'heat and bond' and then stitched around the shapes using the machine. Hand embroidery and beads came next before making up.

click on the images to enlarge

The stitch for the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge is stem stitch. This is another of the stitches that I'm not really keen on and I don't much like the sample that I have done either. On the sample there is ribbon, transfer printed ribbon [the patterned one under the felt], needle felting, a slice of organza bag and a slice of painted/stamped paper. There is also decorative machine stitching, running stitch and the stem stitch and it will be another page for my fabric journal.

One of the first embroidered pictures I did, many years ago, had a lot of stem stitch on it and it took me years to complete. Maybe that is why I'm not keen on the stitch?

It was a kit from a magazine. Sorry about the poor quality of the photo, it has been a dark day. The bright circle of light is the flash from the camera.