Monday 20 May 2013

Wordy Envelope cushion

A friend of mine recently moved from a gorgeous but tiny one up one down cottage into a much larger house with a spare room for me to stay in. Hooray! What to bring as a small house warming gift that suits both my friend and her chappy? Much inward debate led to today's burst of creativity in the shape of a wordy cushion.

Much as I like the Jan Constantine cushions when I see them in shops they are way out of my budget, a tad too cutesy for my taste and dry clean only. They are also not right at all for my friends. Fresh from making embroidered felt birdies I had an idea for a word cushion. I know that there are hundreds of cushions in the shops with inspirational words emblazoned on the front. 'Love, Hope, Believe'. Sorry but they are just not for me, all a bit too saccharine.

My friend is Welsh and does speak the language. One of my favorite memories with her is when we were manning my stand at a disastrous Christmas Fair. The fair was truly appalling, nobody was buying anything, and we were stuck there for three days. There was nothing for it but to start my Welsh language education with all the rude words. This led to inevitable hilarity much to the bewilderment of the other stand holders as we sat there cackling away.

All in all it seemed appropriate to go down the Welsh route. No not with Cwtch (cuddle), although it is a brilliant word. No not with the rude words! With 'Proper Tidy' in red (washable felt) letters on a grey fabric. Amusing for my friend and suitable manly for her chappy. OK I know a cushion is hardly manly but as cushions go it is pretty butch.


Equipment
Fabric
Felt 
Paper
Pins
Fabric scissors
Thread
Sewing machine
Computer with word or publisher
Printer

Method - Time taken: About three hours.

1. Have a play with fonts in word or publisher (Publisher is easier as you can make  a document the size of the cushion and have much more flexibility to play with sizes and placing.) When you have a font you like the look of make the letters big enough to look good on the cushion.

Top Tip: When choosing a font make sure that you don't have one that has really thin lines in the letters you are using. It will make life really tricky when you come to cut them out and harder still to sew them on. I used Bookman Old Style.

2. Print out your letters and cut them out. I found it easier to not cut out the inside holes as it makes it easier to be neat when cutting the felt out.  Pin the letters to the felt and cut them out.


3. Cut out three pieces of fabric the size and shape of your cushion plus an extra 3/4 inch all round for sewing. Put two of them aside for later.

4. Pin the letters to the front piece of fabric. I went for deliberately wonky as it looked better and to make this kind of thing  perfectly straight is a nightmare. Once you are happy with how they look sew the letters on. It is faster by machine but it would also look really pretty sewing them on with embroidery thread.



5. Looking good so far. Just need to make the cushion up. Take one of the two back pieces of fabric and fold over one of the long sides by about 5 cm, iron and do it again to create a large hem.


 6. Place onto the front of the cushion with the fold facing you and the raw edges lined up with the top and the sides of the front piece.

Terrible picture. Sorry. I'd take another but I can't un-pick the whole thing now.

7. Treat the final piece of fabric in the same way but make the fold 10cm and place on top of the other back piece with the fold facing you and the raw edges lined up with the bottom of the front piece.

8. Pin all three pieces of fabric together and sew around the outside of the cushion. Dead easy.

9. Snip the corners of the cushion to help them  make a nice point and turn the whole lot the right way round.


10. Ta dah! One 'Proper Tidy' cushion cover. I like to iron the edges to make them really sharp but that is me being a bit fussy. Put a pad inside and job done.


  
Top Tip: Using a pad that is slightly too large for the cushion cover will give you a gorgeously plump cushion that won't need to be shaken too often to get it back in shape.

I am going to admit to being more than a bit pleased with how this turned out. If I'm brutally honest I didn't want to give it away and ended up wrapping it up very quickly in order to take the temptation away.

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