I have just moved into a nice new flat and now the dust has settled and my sewing machine has made it out into daylight, it is time to fill it with crafty crap.
I feel the slightly wonky and garishly patterned style of my work will bring my nice new flat to the more chaotic and mediocre pit I am used. I see it as akin to when the prettiest girl in school got a monstrous pimple.
Sorry pretty flat.
Anyway, I have opted with a cushion cover as starting point. Our living room had a hotel-y feel to it, all matching and colour co-ordinatined, not to mention our sofas need a little extra support.
I found some cool camera fabric on eBay and thought this would be manly enough to appease both sides in a man vs. soft furnishings battle.
What I didn’t realize when buying this was the inclusion of the 2GB memory cards on the design- it kind of jars for me against the cool camera design.
All I can assume is, that the designer was trying to remind us to the migration to digital media and the importance of backing up your data…or something
I chose a plain grey linen for the backing and a petrol blue bobble trim.
I will very rarely steer away from envelope cushions when it comes to these things. They are hugely simple to make and means you don’t have to faff with any fastenings.
Really the only reason I’d not pick this method would be if a) I had some really badass buttons I wanted to use b) I was short on fabric.
To get an envelope opening you back section on the cushion needs two flaps, with one overlapping the over, with room enough to conceal to cushion inside, but not so much, it is a pain in the arse to get the cushion in and out.
This option works OK on circular pillows, not so much on long bolster pillows.
Sorry if that’s not clear, but there are many demonstration elsewhere on the web, which are not as mumbly or damming to bunting as I.
Hopefully once you see the later pics it’ll make sense a little bit. I just ran a straight stitch down these two backing sections and measured the front section according to the size of my cushion pad.
I wanted to jazz up this cushion a little and so in comes the bobble trim.
I think adding edging trims, can give an extra detail that will make a project look more expensive or give a bit of colour when you’re main fabric is plain.
I like these mini bobbles as they are fun and don’t get caught on your watch/ jeans like standard size bobble trims.
This technique also looks great if you sandwich a jumbo ric rac in, for a lovely hint of wiggly colour peeping out the edge.
At this pinning stage remember you are working inside- out, so when laying your pieces have all the right sides facing in, this goes for the trim too.
I used a basting stitch just to keep my bobble trim in place, you could go straight to the machine after you’ve pinned, but I find I can loose the feel of the trim and either miss a section in the seam or sew in too far.
Now you just need to sew your sandwich of front, trim and back panels together.
When you have sewn the seams do have a quick check round the see there aren’t any holes where you’ve not grabbed all three layers so you can go back in fill in.
That’s it. I think.
Fuck Off Bunting. 