Cushion

Another '6 months off' project was making a cushion with the union jack on.  There were a lot of flags around last summer with both the Olympics and Diamond Jubilee so plenty of inspiration.













I'm sure somewhere I saw one that was all done in white, which was what I decided to do.  I have accumulated a fair amount of lace and wanted to use it in a project that I would get to keep as it's so lovely.  I bought a cushion pad from Dunelm Mill which was in the right size/shape; it was filled with feathers too :) http://www.dunelm-mill.com/shop/cushions/

I laid out two pieces of white fabric and using a ruler and pencil drew two rectangles the same size as the cushion dimensions.  I left plenty of extra fabric to ensure that I could properly secure the lace.  I laid out the diagonals first - medium strip of lace from top left to bottom right and from bottom left to top right - and pinned them.

I can't use the foot on the sewing machine very well at all and since I wanted this to come out looking nice I turned the wheel on the side by hand for the whole of this!! It is very laborious and slow but it did mean it all looks beautiful.

For the white strips on either side of the diagonal I used a narrow white ribbon, pinning and sewing as before.  The more complicated bit is the central cross as you have to layer your strips of lace.  I first pinned the horizontal cross-piece and its edging.  Then lay the vertical crosspiece and weave its edging underneath the horizontal crosspiece.  It took me a bit of time as I re-pinned it to get it perfect.  Also when I decided that my wide lace was too creamy/yellowy and bleached it it decided to shrink and so I had to re-pin all over again.

Knowing that when I sewed it all up and made it into a pillowcase there would be an edge where the tag ends of my bits of lace would be showing I made a hem, trimmed the ends of lace and covered it with ribbon.  I know it's not perfect but it gave me a nice finish.  I can't really tell you how to make it into a pillowcase as I had Mum explaining it to me in unfinished sentences and in the end let her fold the flap and pin it for me to sew.

I'm really pleased with the way this turned out and use it a lot.  One last detail, the little 'handmade' charm I found and an opportunity to see the lace close-up.