Cushions and the Cat

 

A few weeks ago I showed a piece of 1950s curtain fabric, which I has bought from Penny Baker Vintage in Tavistock market to make some cushions. Finally the cushions are made, and these are just two of the four cushions. I love them. Although genuine old fabric, I don't think that they were ever hung as curtains, as there was no fading on it at all.

 

The backs were made from some linen material bought from Soft Touch Needlecraft. I liked this colour, and wanted to make as many cushions as I could from the 1950s fabric.

 

But although I had intended these cushions to be for the kitchen, I haven't quite brought myself to put them out yet. Mainly because of my cat, who is a little old lady now. Despite having two lovely soft baskets, she likes to hang out in the kitchen, and will sit on anything soft. I keep finding her having made herself all comfy on the oven glove. And although I think she is fairly healthy, and still brings us home the gift of the odd mouse, she is occasionally sick. Although I am not overly house proud, I just can't bear the thought of the cushions having to go through the wash straight away. So for the moment they are still by the sewing machine. But last winter there was a point when she decided to spend most of her time in the airing cupboard. So that may be when the cushions come out. Am I turning into the sort of person who keeps plastic covers on their sofa? Possibly.

 

 

 

 

Cushions and Country Shopping

One of my concerns about moving to the country was shopping. I'm not really a big shopper, but in town I was very lucky being within walking distance of a big shopping centre on the edge of London. But even there, sometimes it was hard to find what I needed, and I have recently been buying wool online. 

But I have found that the small town that we live near in the country, Launceston, has more than one really good wool shop. The Cosy Little Wool Shop, runs knit and natter coffee mornings, and I am going to try and be brave and go when they start again. There is also somewhere out of town called Cowslip Workshops, which runs craft classes and has a cafe, but is only open by appointment at the moment.  

One of the other shops in town, Threads Designs, not only has wool, but a whole range of fabrics for dressmaking and furnishing, and everything else that a sewer might need. Nice ladies who can advise and cut whatever you need.

I have made these cushions, with everything needed bought from Threads Designs. I am going to take them with me to the flat. Less than two weeks now, and me and my daughter will be heading back to town for school. Her final school year. Perhaps then I may get back to a bit more crafting, as there seem so many outdoor distractions here.

What is nice in the country is shops tend not to be chains.  I have not even mentioned Cornwall Smallholder Supplies, where you can look at the large range of brewing and jam-making equipment. Or Maunders, more geared to agriculture, so among the gardening supplies, you can also find tags for your livestock and other more mysterious equipment.

Just a reminder that there is still loads of time left to join in my Ginx Woolly Linx party for August. Click on the photo above or at the top of the page to find the party. I would love to see what you have been working on this month.

Completely Handmade Cushions

I put a picture a few weeks ago of some chunky wool I had, and decided in the end to make some new cushions from it. My husband was not keen on this idea, as the last cushions that I knitted looked lovely at first, but went saggy quite quickly. But I found a lovely pattern on ravelry Knitted ZigZag Cushion, and convinced him and myself that if I made these with slightly smaller needles than suggested, combined with the fair isle pattern meaning wool will be carried across the back, they would knit up into a nice firm, dog-proof, fabric.

I think I was right, but I guess only time will really tell. The pattern has a stripe of moss stitch at the top and bottom. I did start off with this, but because I did not have the right sized needles, it was much wider that the rest of the knitting. So I back unravelled this at the very end - not that easy a thing to do.  I really love the way the colours look together.

So I had quite a bit of wool left over, but not enough to make another cushion from this zigzag pattern. I started off trying to knit a very simple fair isle design, just with spots, but half-way through realised that I was going to run out of wool before it was a square. So that was unravelled too, and cushion number two is a bit simpler, just rows of stripes.

 
I have called this my "completely handmade cushions", as the intention had been to machine sew the fabric backs. I don't have my own sewing machine here, but thought I could use my daughter's mini John Lewis one. But unfortunately we can't get this to work - the stitch just keeps going long and then short. So the only solution seemed to be a bit of hand-sewing. I do enjoy a bit of hand stitching, but this was a bit much, as it involved removing the zips from the old cushions, sewing them into a new back, hemming the back pieces, and them sewing the knitted fronts to the thick back fabric with wool.

I am really pleased with the finished cushions, but am not going to sew anything by hand for a while. Finally I can start on my mail order wool.

Just a reminder that there is still plenty of time left to join in my Ginx Woolly Linx party for April. Click on the photo above or at the top of the page to find the party. I would love to see what you have been working on this month.

Cushions

When I went to the Knitting Show at Earl's Court in the spring I bought a really huge ball of chunky Aran wool. I've had the idea to knit some cushion covers for myself, and our holiday seemed the perfect time for this "big for me" knit. 

This was my first cushion, and I was delighted with how it turned out. It is a 50cm cushion pad, so quite big. The pattern worked out perfectly with exactly five leaf designs on it. It may look a bit like cable knitting, but isn't, just a combination of knitting together and increasing. I am going to put the pattern for this Leaf Cushion online soon, though may knit another one in a deeper colour first.

I had enough wool left for a second cushion, and thought I would try something a bit more pictorial. I had a few problems, as originally the tree was going to be in a frame of leaves. Something went wrong and I had to unravel, which is why there is just a leaf in each corner. I was really pleased with the tree, which I planned out on a grid of paper. You can see my enormous grid below, which is actually 9 pieces of paper glued together. I had thought of writing it up as a pattern, but I am not sure that anyone else would want to follow such an enormous chart, or even how I would get it into a document. I even got a bit confused myself near the top of the tree, but thought that so long as I keep the right number of stitches, no one will be able to tell if the odd leaf is not in the place I originally planned. So this is probably going to be just for me. I may have a go at another similar cushion, as it was fun to do, and I would like to make the tree a bit more asymmetric, and knit it in a deeper colour.

Upcycled Cushions

I am so happy with my latest sewing project. Mainly because these lovely cushions are for me, but also because I love an upcycle project.

My old cushion covers were looking very sad. I should have done the TV makeover trick of photographing them before in very poor lighting. So I had in mind to make some new cushion covers. Around the corner from my house there is an upholstery shop, that often has a bin of bargain bits outside. A few weeks ago I was having my usual look at the curtain offcuts when I saw there was a massive book of fabric samples propped against the bin. I was delighted when the shop said they did not even want anything for it, and when I got home I very carefully dismantled the book to get the samples out. 

So with most of the plain velvets pieces I have recovered my sofa cushions. Aren't the colours great. I don't think I would have used this variety of colours if I had had to buy the material. They look like jewels. I unpicked and reused the old zips and cushion pads, so this project was a complete bargain.

But I still have a huge selection of fabric pieces left. So any ideas of what I could make with them would be really welcome. Most are really thick brocades, and with quite big patterns. But none of the pieces are bigger than 30cm by 35cm.  The only idea I have had is to patchwork again, and try and make a large funky handbag. The sort of bag I like has room for a book and some knitting.

There were also a few bits of embroidered organza, and I am going to use these to make some little bags for my knitted shoes and toys.
 

Let me know if you have any ideas for what I could make with my hoard of fabric pieces.