Holiday Sewing

Hello Lovelies ,  we have had a rather jolly Jubilee weekend, time spent with friends and family enjoying the celebrations.
The highlight for me was a local beacon lighting and spectacular firework display. It's great that my boys are old enough to stay up till late on occasion and enjoy such a memorable event. It's dawned on me that they are roughly the same age as I was for the Queen's Silver jubilee 35 years ago. I hope that they will have fond memories of it .........

Fortunately the weather was dry, not warm , but at least dry on Monday evening.

Conditions have rapidly gone downhill since then. At least all the rain has made the garden look very lush and I've had an excuse to carry on sewing this week.

I love watching the pair of blackbirds nesting in our garden gathering food for their young. Here Mr Blackbird looks like he is saying hello to our rabbit ,who is sensibly staying indoors.

When my niece came to visit we spent and enjoyable couple of hours having a go at hand sewn hexagons. Here is her little project.....I love the primary colours she chose and her stitching is so neat......

Yesterday I made a second caravan cushion. This time I decided to make a "log cabin" design. I think this can look complicated , but it's really not at all. My centre square was one of my thrifted cross stitch pictures.
Here I've attached a strip of fabric to the top edge and pressed the seam towards the edge.....

Here I'm about to add the second strip. My strips are 3 inches wide and I made 1/2 inch seams but you can go with what ever suits you.
Trim this strip level with the bottom of the centre square before sewing...

Here I've attached two more strips , first the flowery one was attached to the check and cross stitch . Then the plain blue was attached to three fabrics......

The next side that needs a strip is the top one in this picture. It's easy to get the correct side if you just remember it's always the side made up of three fabrics.

Here's my finished cushion......Ta-Dah ......

As you can see , I've used some different different fabrics this time. I wanted it to co-ordinate with my first cushion but not be too similar.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out .There is a little oops on the back , where I made the fabric an inch too small , so I had to add a strip of the same fabric , but I'm really not upset about it.This time I got some velcro to make the closure . Slightly quicker then hand sewing snap fasteners.

Just this morning as the wind and rain lashed the windows I've made another log cabin...I know , I've got a patchwork addiction!

This one is a teeny pincushion.........using 3 cm strips ........

It's to go in my little work box..........

Now it's time to pack away my sewing machine I thought I would carry on my patchwork addiction with some hexagons of my own  :0)

Jacquie x

Latest Crochet Cushion

Hello Lovelies , thank you all so much for the kind and interesting comments you made on my last "nature" post. I'm glad to see there are other fans of these lovely books reading this blog :0)
Today it's back to a little crochet...the ta-dah post for those squares I showed you a little of last week.

So here we go ...


Ta- dah !.....

What do you think ?  I'm rather chuffed with this little project , the colours were so uplifting and fun to work on a miserable grey week............

It's made by making four squares , which I sewed together..

Then I added enough rows to fit my cushion...simples :0)

It's one of my "cheat" cushions .....just a front square attached to a ready made cushion . The green edging is part of the original cushion .

and here's the back......

Have you noticed it's made from a different stitch to a standard granny cluster? I got the idea from here.
I've just studied Sarah's image and done something similar...not sure what Sarah calls it ...I've gone with granny spike.

It's really easy to do and if you can do a granny cluster, you know, three U.S. double crochet ( U.K.trebles) you can do this :0)

I'm a little short on time tonight so I will do a tutorial, for those who would like one, next time .

I'm liking the slightly different  effect of this stitch and it's very practical for a cushion cover as it makes a less holey finish which hides the pad ( or in my case ,green cushion !) well.
Here it is with all it's co-ordinating friends, looking sweet on my sofa ....

Crochet cushions ......Ummmmmmmmmm....got to love them :0)

Have a great week Lovelies .
Jacquie x

Button Closure for Crochet Cushions

Hello lovelies ,hope your Friday is going well. Firstly I must say THANK YOU SO MUCH for your comments.You lot are really the best :0)

After a hectic work day yesterday it was such a nice surprise to return home to 23 lovely comments on my cushion.

A few of you asked about how I make my button closure.I'm more than happy to share my method ,which is just made up by me, I'm not sure what others do.

So here goes-

When using this method I finish both halves with 2 rows of U.K. double ( U.S. single crochet) .This serves two purposes.
1. It means that when the two sides are sewn together you end up with 4 rows of close stitches around the edge which looks neat and holds its shape well...



2. It also means I can make simple button holes on one side of one half.
I really don't think it matters if the buttonholes are worked in the back or front.
What does matter is making sure they are not too far apart. ....



As you can see from this picture, in this cushion there are only 3 stitches between buttonholes. This means you don't end up with the pad showing through,as I have had happen in the past.

The buttonholes are simply made by skipping 2 stitches in the last row and chaining 2 before D.C. (UK) S.C. (US) in the third stitch of previous row.
I hope this makes sense. Remember you can always click on my pictures to enlarge them.
If you have bigger buttons you may need to adjust the size of your buttonholes accordingly.

Once you have finished making enough buttonholes,which will depend on the size of your cushion,complete the row and finish off.

I join the two halves by putting them right sides together and over sewing in outer loops only.Remember to leave an opening on the buttonhole edge.

Once the two sides are joined turn the cushion right sides out and attach your buttons opposite the buttonholes.......


Well I hope this helps , feel free to ask if anything is still not clear.
Hope you have a great weekend .
Jacquie x

Emma's Christmas Cushion

Hello peeps, hope the weather is kind where you are. It's wet,wet,wet here !

I'm just popping by to post some pictures of the cushion I've made for my bloggy friend -Emma . The cushion is actually to sell on a stall she is having at a charity Christmas fair.

I had had great fun making this, using this pattern for the front.......



And a simple granny for the back, with what I hope looks like a star in the centre....



Once again I've used my favourite button closure method....



I made a red cushion pad to go inside as it looked much better than a white one showing through.
While I had my sewing machine out to make the pad I also made three gingham hearts to go with the red and white theme. I hope these will be popular as they make great tree decorations or just look pretty any time of year......



These things have all been made from stuff I had in my stash, except the buttons
. It feels great to put the things to use for a good cause .I'll pop these in the post for you later this week Emma.
The fair isn't till November so there is still time to join in if you want :0)



Jacquie x