All the details, including the brief can be found :here
I've had an idea in my mind for a little while now, involving a new cushion cover. I wanted something stripey, but with a variety of stripe sizes rather than just being a plain, consistent stripe if that makes sense. When I saw the Hatti Raspberry fabric in the Hilary's collection I knew that was the fabric I wanted.
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| Hatti Raspberry - isn't it beautiful? |
My plan was to make a new cushion cover, and include an image on it, the the stripes at a 90 degree angle to the stripes on the cushion.But what image to choose? My decision was made when I was driving my sleepy boyfriend to the airport for a business trip. I jokingly asked how upset he'd be if I got a cat to keep me company while he was away, and he said I could go out and get a cat if I wanted. Oh boy, was I tempted! Having refrained from getting a cat and making this while he was away, I decided to go with a cat silhouette. One Google image search later and I was sorted. I used my lovely water dissolving pen to draw out (ahem, trace) my cat silhouette onto my fabric and started cutting into the beautiful fabric.
Playing about with the fabric I realised that the effect wasn't quite what I was after, and decided to back the stripey cat onto an old piece of denim that I had lying about (the denim used to be a pair of jeans that then became a bag). And thus the cat was born!
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| Meow! |
Now all I had to do was make the cushion part. Being a busy person (y'know, exams, beer festival organising, work etc etc) I didn't really want to fight with a zip or buttons. But a cushion without these things should be easy to do, right?
Right!
I took a long rectangle of the fabric (roughly measured using a cushion from the couch to make sure I had enough length a width - just wrap the cushion and ensure there's an overlap) and folded over the two small ends, pinning into place. Stripey fabric makes it easy to fold at the right place as I used the stripes as a guide.
The two ends were then sewn, and laid the rectangle flat, right side up.
I bought in the two ends towards the centre (although if you want the cushion 'hole' to be higher or lower on your cushion then fold the ends as desired) so that the right side of the fabric was on the inside.
Sew together the two open ends.... and you should have something similar to this! (I've opened up the centre a bit to show clearly)
Turn the cushion inside out, so that the right side is on the right side. I used knitting needles to open up the corners - but be careful! I once jabbed the needles so hard into the corners of a different project and ened up going through the fabric. (Yes, I was indeed that silly once upon a time. A time not all that long ago. Ahem).
And voila! The cushion is made. Now, if you wanted to be REALLY clever, you'd have the cushion sizes all planned out, and have already attached your silhouette to your cushion before you sew the ends of it. This would be really sensible, otherwise you have to do what I did - attach the silhouette to the cushion with you hand inside the cushion, taking great care not to sew the middle of the cushion together (which I managed to do).
I played about with the placement of the cat. Front and centre, or in the corner?
Then I got silly, and added an eye to the cat. Doesn't he look a bit like a squirrel holding a nut now?
The eye was too much, and I preferred the cat in the bottom corner. Here's the finished piece, complete with creases, yeah! In my defense, I didn't spend as much time on this as I perhaps should have done - I blame exams and beer festivals. Apparently, they don't organise themselves, and revision must be done. It also doesn't help that I'm in desperate need of a new iron...
The other fabrics Hillarys had are really nice as well - why not check them out on Pinterest, and see the other lovely things people made?
Many thanks to Hillarys for sending me the fabric and letting me play!
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