Birthday bedding

A cushion and a pillowcase I made for my brother who moved to London in 2014. Not as colourful as my usual choices of material but he chose the material and who am I to argue!

Christmas cushions - some more patchwork, dinosaurs and holly

A homemade Christmas present selection wouldn't be complete without a few cushions - so here are the ones I made this year.

Patchwork for 3 year old Oliver, mini dinosaurs for 2 year old Leo

And here is other side of the patchwork cushion (of course, they weren't matching!).

Finally, a Christmas cushion for Liz to add to her wonderful Christmas decorations each year.

I reckon it could be used all year round.... :)

Giant cushion covered in trees

My brother Paul told me his girlfriend Jo had two large cushions that she liked the size and feel of, but didn't like the covers. He secretly measured them and I made her a cover for her birthday. I'll cover the other one for Christmas.

Beautiful flowers from Ben and my homemade pincushion in the background. We took some roses for Jo too.

Alex chose the material from Our Patterned Hand. He said it felt like the sort of pattern where you might get home and find it's full of naked people hiding behind the trees. 

No naked people here though;

We went to visit them both in Oxford and Jo modelled her cushion cover for us. Luckily it fitted really well.

Have you done any cushion modelling before Jo?

Autumnal coloured craftings..

Dad's birthday is in October, and he loves autumnal colours. For a long time he's been hinting after a cushion for room he rents when he is away for work. I used a mixture of coloured felt in browns, oranges, reds and yellows and some printed cotton pieces - the first time I've mixed felt and cotton.

Here's one side;

And here's the other;

I also had another go at using the embroidered letters setting on my machine - this time using the smallest, fanciest stitch. It worked quite well  - except for the 'from' - I don't think I was pulling the material through the machine fast enough.

After I'd sent it, I remembered that last year I made an autumnally coloured gift for Dad too - a card of leaves in pastels;

Super Galaxie First Aid

I have been in Accident and Emergency, hospital and my GP for various tests, checks and scans recently, and I can only assume my sewing machine is feeling left out. Today, as I finally got started on a project I have been promising to make for a volunteer on TheSite.org, it started knocking and grinding and we had to attempt some first aid.

Innards on the outside

They are complicated things these sewing machines...

Here's the project in progress (if anyone is wondering, it will be the logo of the 12th Mechanized Brigade - our volunteer is also in the army). I was using Heirloom stitch which is a very thick stitch involving a lot of needle movement - but I don't think this should cause a problem.

I tried to do some minor adjustments before taking the side off - they just led to three sad and broken needles. With some trial and error, I managed to solve part of the problem but the knocking was still there.

Unfortunately, our first aid failed to fully identify the problem so, while I did get an interesting look inside my machine, I am going to have to take her to be serviced.

Sorry G, you'll have to wait a wee bit longer for your cushion....

Wedding date cushion - with applique and embroidered letters

Tom and Jess only wanted handmade presents or donations. So, of course, it was an excellent opportunity for me to make a huge cushion! I used lots of the left over bunting scraps to create the letters, which I appliquéd on using what my machine calles 'patchwork stitch'. It turns out some of the bunting material, and the yellow backing was perhaps a bit thin, so I had to do some hand touching up afterwards.

I printed out letter templates, cut them out and pinned them to material, ready to cut round. A fiddly job with some of the smaller letters, but here they are ready for sewing.

I should have realised at this point that the base material was perhaps a bit thin - you can see how easily it's creasing.

Sewing the letters - you can just see our adopted black cat Blur, who likes to help. For this cushion, I wanted to have a go using the fancier of the letter stitching options on my machine. Here's the practice run.

And here's the real thing - only a wee bit wonky!

Almost done- adding the zip using the zip foot on my machine.  Most places suggest you tack round zips to hold them in place as you sew, but I usually find that as long as the hems are well ironed, you can just hold it in place as you sew it in.

And finally, a couple of green heart shaped buttons I couldn't resist - these are from Our Patterned Hand on Broadway Market.

Football cushion

My brother wanted his own cushion to go alongside all his girlfriend's home decor. I printed out a number of copies of the logo and cut out all the separate pieces in paper, and then into felt. I used patchwork stitch on my machine to applique the logo together.

A robot and an accidental blackbird

This was my first attempt at something almost resembling applique (although I still used the straight stitch a few millimetres in from the edge rather than applique stitch). Alex told me he wanted a robot with a crow on his head.  I was pleased with this effort until he told me that the yellow beak meant he was a blackbird. I'm still pleased with it though. Material, buttons, zip and felt came from Our Patterned Hand on Broadway Market.

Animal and bird cushions

 These are simple cotton cushions with various animal prints.

Pigs and Noahs Ark for Jonny and Liliana

Chris wanted some chicken cushions for her breakfast room at the Old School House Bed and Breakfast.

Chickens

Chris happy with her cushions

Our Patterned Hand had some wonderful bird and owl material.

Elmer cushions

Cushions are a good first step for learning to use a sewing machine. And I made a lot of them. The felt for these ones is from Felt Fairy on eBay and the zips from Our Patterned Hand on Broadway Market. The felt comes in squares anyway, so for these ones I just roughly quartered them using a wheel cutter then sewed them together in rows. I then sewed the rows into squares. I added the zips down one side, joining the two halves together, then sewed the squares round the edge with the front side together before turning it inside out to make the finished cushion.

Pimping the green chair.

I always wanted a really big cushion to lean against while reading in bed.