Cushions

Do you like lots of cushions at your house? I like them. I don't like how much they cost for the pretty ones though. Especially with small children around who play with them, fight with them and spill stuff on them. As I mentioned in this post, we are planning some renovations come Spring time. This means a few pieces of new furniture. Goodbye green, blue and brown check lounge suite, hello modern dream charcoal modular suite. I have been reading up house magazines and spotting all the handmade ideas that can be thrown into the mix to soften the modern look I am after.

Back to cushions. We have some on our couch. They are the ones that came with it. They are green, blue and brown check just like the lounge suite. Blerk. I have always meant to make some new covers. We have had that thing for over 11 years now and I still haven't done it. (That didn't even make it to the mid-craft pile!)

Renovation planning is a little boring without action. So I am going to make cushions. I bought this book for myself for Mother's Day and have decided to make cushions out of it. It uses free motion stitching on applique. A more modern way to applique than I learnt way back when I learnt to sew at school.

It is so divine. When I look at the pictures, I almost believe I could just sit down and whip up one of these in no time. Of course, I know I don't actually do that. Maybe one day, if I could sit down at my sewing machine and work with it regularly... I might remember which settings do what and I wouldn't have to teach myself all over again every time I used it. :-)

This is the first cushion I would like to attempt. So pretty.

Here is what I have done so far. I have chosen all the fabric - an old pillow case, 2 of the kids old dresses and some fabric from Mum's stash. Not a bad effort really.

I even went to the sewing machine shop and bought a new foot for free motion stitching. The woman that served me lectured me on the fact that you don't use a free motion foot for applique. I didn't like her. She did show me how to do free motion stitching though. So I guess I like her a little bit. :-)

This is some fabric I bought on a trip to Spotlight recently. It is all meant to be for cushions. It looks so pretty on my shelf. I would like to get the sewing machine out sometime in the next week but then I was saying the same thing last week.

I am mid-crafting a few things at the moment. Some to do with the birthdays that are coming up in our family and some just because I suddenly had an idea. I will have to get some pictures taken so that I can post what has been keeping me so busy. What are you up to at the moment?