It's Ripply and Pompommy and Comfy

Drum roll ~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have finished my Ripple Crochet cushion!
I know, there are people everywhere who have finished these massive ripple blankets - legends, and there are even overachievers who are on to ripple number 2 (Kirsty - haven't you anything better to do with your time woman! :-) ). But I am a plodder, crafts do not move quickly in my fair hand, and I'm a shocker for not finishing things so to have a completed task is worth a glass of celebratory wine (done, was good)

Anyway, this is the front of the cushion, I love this colour combination, very under the sea.


Then I ran out of green wool, so decided to use one of my first spinning attempts, done in lairy bright green. Uneven blobby handspun is quite a challenge to crochet I discovered, but makes for interesting abstract kinda texture!
My camera has had a hissy at this point, it can't quite cope with all this bright colour and hasn't reproduced it very well in this shot, it has a weird tone to it.

At this point I discovered I was a little enthusiastic with my ripple rows and had made it 3 rows too long to make a square cushion. Solution (thanks Meshell) was to create a fold over flap on the back and secure it with buttons. I had a hankering for a big of zingy bright yellow...


And, and, the piece de resistance - POMPOMS! I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't stand waste, and here I was with a tiny bit left of 5 balls of wool, so instead of having them lie around and go to waste I thought I'd use it all up and make a pompom for each corner. I must say that I'm delighted with the slightly ridiculous look they have given the cushion. :-)

I tell you what, it's the comfiest, softest most gorgeous cushion to lean into - you positively sink into it. Steve likes it too and seems to think that this will be his special "lean against whilst playing on the X-Box cushion", ha!


And this is the back, which side do you like better? It's amazing how different a few buttons and a different green can make it look actually.

Another Cushion!

I love making cushions. They are a less formidable task than larger objects and I also like the hodge podge of cushion variety on the settee. Now this cushion is a hodge podge in itself, a regular riot of colour. Those of you who read my blog in its early days may well remember my foray into knitting - I started churning out many mitred squares in various colours and sizes. Well, FINALLY I made it up into a cushion yesterday. I backed the knit section with cotton fabric so it wouldn't stretch out of shape, and here it is...


It's bright isn't it!! Lucky for me that I love lairy stuff. Do you know it is the MOST comfortable cushion to lean into - soft and squashy and just right. The reason I had a go at mitred knitting was after Melody Johnson posted this on her blog - her cushions are one of the yummiest things I've ever seen!



And here is a close-up of knitting, for no reason apart from the fact that I like to amuse myself by taking macro photos. :-)

Shades of Blue cushion

This is my very favourite cushion. I really like fabrics of similar colour together so this was a chance to play around with that. I started out with a single piece of hand dyed turquoise fabric and to that I fused squares of various scraps of blues and other turquoise hand dyeds that I have hoarded away.

I also like the look of frayed edges so I cut the vliesofix a little smaller than the squares of fabric, leaving a loose edge. I then stitched around the fused perimeter and finally frayed the threads of the loose edge back to that stitching line.


Then I mucked around with fabric paint and then experimented with couching embroidery threads. What really made my day was wandering around Textile Traders looking for a zip for the cushion and quite by chance finding the decorative edging, which I hadn't even considered using. AND it was on sale at 50% off! Happy dance.... I couldn't believe how closely the colours matched and it really finished it off nicely.

I'm mulling in my mind at present to do another cushion but this time using fused circles of like coloured fabrics rather than squares. The only issue with that it I wont be able to fray it nicely like the squares. Perhaps I'll have a go at embroidery stitching around the circle edges instead. hmmm.... I've also got a small collection of tiny beads that I'd like to use. I really enjoy the mind mulling stage of a new project.

River Stones cushion

I like making cushions, they are a good way of trying out a new idea without being totally overwhelmed with doing something on a massive scale like a bed quilt. This one involved lots and lots of scribble stitching to 'pop out' what ended up looking like little rocks in a river to me. I sandwiched a layer of wadding first to help to shapes lift up a bit more.