BLOG 259

BLOG 259

What a disappointing week quilt-wise!  The thread that I had been promised for the start of week failed to arrive so I had loads of time on my hands, piles of sewing in my craft room and no thread! It was so frustrating because I believe I could have almost finished the quilt in the time I had on my hands. Instead, I cleaned out all my cupboards, sorted through clothes and accumulated paraphernalia, tidied the garden between showers and took loads of stuff to the charity shops/tip. Although the experience was very cathartic and I did have the satisfaction of a clean and tidy environment, there was nothing creative to show for it! However, I made sure that all was not quite lost. Ella, our eldest granddaughter is 6 next Tuesday so I decided to make a loose cover for a child’s upholstered armchair to go in her newly decorated bedroom. The chair was made for her mother when she was about the same age.

                                                           Ella’s chair

  I have never done anything like this before and I’d like to say that I will never be doing anything like this again but there is another chair which I shall have to re-cover for her sister Katie’s 3^rd birthday next month.

                                                    Katie’s chair

 It was worth the struggle, and struggle I did; as you can see, it’s not brilliant! But I am now going to make a personalised cushion to go with it, so it has all been worthwhile!!

                                                                   Blank canvas

                                                  Letters and thread

                                                            Purple fabrics

                                                       Pattern ideas

                                                      Pattern ready

                                                Cut out fusible letters

                                                           Iron onto fabric

                                                           Cut out accurately

I decided at this stage that the letters were too big for the 10” cushion I was making so I prepared them again with a smaller pattern. I prepared bird shapes on fusible in the same way and ironed all the shapes onto the RS of the cushion front. This was then placed onto a batting and a backing layer ready to applique and quilt at the same time.

                                              Iron onto cushion fabric

 Instead of zigzaging around the shapes as I would normally do, I chose to have a go at what I tend to call naïve applique. This involves drawing round the shapes a couple of times with a dark thread and free motion straight stitch. I also added a bit of decorative detail.

                                             Naïve applique and stitch

                                                                     Detail

I added a 1” border and prepared an over-lapped back to complete the cushion.

                                                     Completed cushion

                                                   Mission accomplished