Having fun!

I’m making another cushion and I’m having a huge amount of fun doing it. I’ve discovered the glorious world of Foundation Piecing.

I’m loving it. It’s another one from the new magazine, Love Patchwork and Quilting and the instructions are excellent. The templates are on the website so I downloaded them and printed them onto freezer paper. It’s so easy to get perfect seams and corners and to get it all lined up. Love it!

The front of the cushion is almost done but I need to cut some 18″ strips for it. My one and only quilting ruler is a 12″ square and my cutting mat, which I assumed was self-healing but apparently isn’t, is just an inch or so larger. I decided that with one cushion already under my belt, and a growing fabric stash, a larger, and definitely self-healing mat was needed, along with a longer ruler.

They’re both on their way so I should be able to finish my cushion off next weekend and then I’ll have another one to show you. And yes, I know I ‘could’ cut the fabric with my small mat and ruler but it’ll be so much easier and more accurate with the larger ones.

I’ve already got the next cushion planned, and even have the fabric pulled for it. There was a booklet of different blocks with the latest copy of the magazine and I want to try making most of them. There’s a nice star that’ll look lovely on a cushion front although I think we may get overrun by cushions at this rate 🙂

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Rail Fence cushion

I’ve had great fun making this cushion. It’s one of the projects featured in the first issue of the new quilting magazine – Love patchwork and quilting. It’s supposed to be good for beginners so perfect for me to have a go at. This is the mag picture that caught my attention.

Pretty, isn’t it. It calls for wide strips but I thought it’d be a good way to use up some more of the never-ending honey bun that I used for the monthly cottages. I adapted it to narrow strips in a variety of colours instead of shading from light to dark in one colour. The honey bun is Kansas Troubles, Sandhill Plums. I love those colours!

First I made my four squares. I tried to make them go from light to dark although it was difficult to decide which was lighter in some cases. I think it looks about right though. These are the four squares before being tidied up.

After joining the squares together and pinning the cushion top to the batting and muslin, I then needed to decide what I was going to do about quilting it. On my earlier attempt at quilting, when I was just trying it out, I did stitch in the ditch, but this time I wanted to do something more adventurous. The magazine example is done ‘on point’ and looks gorgeous. I thought I’d do mine like that but instead of doing different widths, I’d do it so it matched the strips.

Like this.

I’ll be honest, I did think I’d been just a little bit too ambitious but I had a picture in my head of how it would look and I really wanted to try it. It took me longer than I thought it would, but once it was finished I was very happy with it. It actually came out just how I’d planned. As the fabric is in several different colours, I decided to go with navy cotton. Whichever colour I picked was going to show somewhere so I planned for it to make a statement in the centre. I’m not sure if that’s the accepted way of doing things, but I like it 🙂

Once the top was quilted I had a mild panic attack when it came to the zip. I’ve done a couple before but the instructions for this were different to how I’d done the others and I really wanted to get it right. I had my own personal cheerleader though, (thanks Jackie!) and managed it with it only going slightly wonky.

The back is in a red fabric that matches the strips in the Honey Bun. The only other yardage I had to match was in a brown or a green and I didn’t want to use either of those. I think the red looks fine though.

Once the zip was in, all that was left to do was sew up the three sides and insert the cushion pad. I got several at Ikea last time we were there so it looks like I’m going to be making a few more cushions yet.

The finished cushion is now on my sofa and I’m leaning on it now. It’s very comfy. I’m chuffed to bits with how it turned out and I really enjoyed making it.

Stephen is very impressed. He wants me to make a quilt for the bed now with matching pillow cases. I think I may make a few more cushions first though. Just to get a bit more practise.

One last close up of the finished cushion.