home continued..

As promised I managed to finish the lovely home patchwork cushion. I chose the fabric I wanted to make the borders with, it was a fabric that I had used  in the patchwork mainly Petit Fleur by Lecien, I bought them as fat quarters from Quilter's Cloth (who have a fantastic range of quilting fabrics) and then added various other fabrics that I thought would work. In total I needed 13 different fabrics

It seems a lot of the fabrics I have are from Lecien, the hearts in the middle are made from the Durham range

There are also designs from Moda and Makower, all 100% cotton. The next step after attaching the borders was to iron some fusible wadding onto both the front and back, for the back I used an unbleached muslin and although this fabric is quite flimsy, adding the wadding gave it stability. Then it was simply a case of stitching them together.

Being a keen recycler I stuffed the cushion with the insides of a previously used cushion pad long ago discarded and sewed up the bottom et voila! I just love the way the colours all work together I am very pleased with the end result, in fact I am definitely going  to make another, but perhaps with a different mix of colours and fabrics, the truth is I have a huge selection of gorgeous fabrics to choose from!

I just couldn't help myself!

I know I haven't finished the latest quilt I am working on but I was so inspired by a patchwork cushion design in one of the craft books I got for my birthday (Cottage Style Quilting by Lynette Anderson ), that I couldn't stop myself from starting a new project before I had finished the last one!

Ah well what can I say! I had a really good time sorting through my fabrics, seeing what would go with what. I wanted  to create a vintage shabby look and I used vintage style pink and blue floral prints.  Now for the precision part of the process, with great solemnity (and may I say skill!!) I then cut out 128 x inch and a half squares and a four and a half inch square for the middle. The next step was to to make a 9 square block.

Did you notice the deliberate error??? One square too many, I have to say that wasn't the last time I did that!

sorry about all  threads in the pic, I do actually snip the threads.

all the blocks nicely made up ready for me to design something for the middle

I haven't done any embroidery for years but I do intend to do some more now I have a bit of a taste for something more elaborate. The little hearts were scraps of fabric from a design called Durham by Lecien which I had used from a previous quilt and it is a lovely faded romantic look.
Tomorrow I will hopefully have time to finish it!

knitting with bamboo!

My lovely niece Katie is expecting her first baby, a great excuse to knit some baby stuff. I wanted to make a shawl or blanket that wasn't too complicated and didn't have crochet edgings as I cannot crochet! I also did not want to have to buy a book of patterns either! You would think that would be quite simple. No way! It took me ages to find the right pattern, but I did still end up buying a book of patterns! But not only that, once I tried to buy the wool I realised the wool had been discontinued! And not for the first time this has happened to me, beware if the pattern book is cheap there is a good reason for it! Never mind I managed to get the wool and it knits up as DK,

 The wool is a bamboo mix, very very soft perfect for babies and the colour is not a bright white but described as Ice white. It was fairly simple and quick to make.