Lyn

I wanted a new cushion for my dining chair. I could have stitched one but when Annie showed me a couple of her sample felt patchwork pieces recently …

… I decided to adapt her idea to make a cushion cover.

My first job was to spend hours sifting through a couple of cubic metres of open-weave fabric. I made a choice of fabrics … then the next day I changed my mind so I went through the whole lot again to get the selection shown below.

I made a base of white merino wool fibres then started to randomly place pieces of fabric on it.  I covered about a third of the wool and decided I wasn’t happy with the look so I carefully removed the patches of fabric and I went back to the drawing board for a rethink.

After a bit of pencil chewing I decided on a pattern.  I marked out 25 squares on a large piece of paper then made freehand wavy lines to make the shapes for the patchwork pieces.

As no two shapes were exactly the same, I numbered them before cutting them out to use as pattern pieces for the fabric, so that they could be correctly placed on the wool fibres.

Unfortunately, because the fabrics were all loose weave, pinning was very difficult and cutting out the shapes was like trying to cut water – the fabric went every which way it wanted to.

I became engrossed in the difficult process of placing the pieces of fabric on the wool fibres and forgot to take a photo of that!  I only remembered when I’d already started on the rolling…

… and here it is after fulling, rinsing and drying.

As the wool shrinks and the fibres wriggle up through the open-weave of the fabrics, a wonderful distorted and crinkly look appears – how much distortion does depend on the type of fabric.

This angled photo shows the crinkly effect quite well.

I made an ‘envelope’ style cushion backing from my ‘regular fabric’ stash in a complementary colour.

And here it is giving comfort from the hard,wooden back of the dining chair.

Annie

The hydrangea is one of my favourite blooms, as much for it’s tactile nature as it’s blousy large beautiful heads. If you’ve never shut your eyes and gently petted a giant hydrangea bloom stop reading and mark your calendar for the month they are in show in your part of the world, and definitely do it!

I’ve been meaning to create a picture in paint or fibres featuring hydrangeas for a long time, so I’m going to have a go, fingers crossed.

I would like it to be fairly abstract, definitely not too real, or too twee, but I really don’t know what I’ll get until I start working. I find it hard to work to a fixed creative outcome, I prefer to see what happens!

I’ve only got as far as sifting out some fabrics and yarns – and honestly this is a lengthy part of the process because I have accumulated far too much stuff over the years!

I remembered I made one small hydrangea sample a while ago that I’ve dug out for inspiration.

I’ve also just been laying out another sample to try out various fabrics and ideas but haven’t got very far yet.

Unfortunately all of the real hydrangea heads are brown (or have been pruned off!) at the moment so I’ve only got photos and imagination to work from, so no still life opportunities around this time of year. I suspect I won’t be too true to colour as I rarely am, but as long as they are roughly identifiable that’s good enough for me!

I’m just getting going so have not achieved much in time for our blog post unfortunately, so it’s a good job mum made her beautiful cushion so there is something finished to see.

Annoyingly life admin has been getting in the way of crafting time recently but I’m chomping at the bit and trying to squeeze in what I can, and hoping for a few quieter weeks now so I can get more done. Did I just say that out loud? Uh oh!