Patchwork Upholstery

I bought this sofa  before our conservatory was finished, it comes with a story about delivery but I shall not go into that just now.  It's a Multiyork sofa and purchased from a big auction site. I always intended to cover it and was delighted to see that it had fully removable covers, However, I was not brave enough to take this apart and make a pattern.

So when a friend started giving me scraps of fabric from her curtain making business I kept a few. The stash grew and I soon had enough to cover the sofa. I made loose covers, one for the back and one for the seat. I used my overlocker and just sewed pieces together.  Once a few were together to make a bigger piece I laid this against the sofa and made a pattern pretty much freehand. It has worked really well, and as you can see Indie like it too!

Part one: the back

 Part two: the whole thing 

Fun Cushions

Both my children  have large cushions they use on a daily basis, mostly for propping themselves up to watch tv or play kill'em quick games!

The first ones I made used Cat in the Hat fabric.  This is probably around 2005/2006, when the fabric in the UK was very hard to come by, and I stumbled upon a scrap pack at your local fabric warehouse.

 I added red and black and then wrote in chalk on the back Cat in the Hat. This was then quilted using thick white thread, and looked very effective.

Once No 1 son's cushion had been totally worn out I made another (any excuse), and I wanted to practice some curved piecing.  This was a little trickier than when I pieced the apple core quilt. I used 5 fabrics and stacked them on top of each other, all facing upward. Then I free hand rotary cut wobbly lines. Taking one strip from each fabric I pieced these together and then joined four blocks to make the front centre block. Borders were then added

The top was free motion quilted, but I did add a lizard outline. This was achieved by drawing a lizard onto freezer paper, cutting it out,  and gently pressing this into position on the finished back of the front of the cushion. I then carefully sewed around the lizard producing a wonderful effect using YLI Candlelight thread in the bobbin.

To compliment this I appliquéd a lizard on to the back of the cushion. 

Tallulah the Pincushion

I wanted to make a pincushion with a picture of an Airedale on it - and here it is.  The main body of the pincushion is made from hand dyed wool felt, with Tallulah made from solid coloured felt. Tallulah is appliquéd  using blanket stitch, all stitching is by hand. 

As the pincushion had deep sides I decided to decorate the sides with appliquéd felt flowers.

I made a separate cushion pad for the interior which I stuffed with sawdust. I have not used sawdust to fill pincushions before, so it will be interesting to see how it performs.

Just out of interest here is Tallulah.