Tuesday 30 April 2013

Making cushions

A few weeks ago I had three very talented ladies in the studio who all made a cushion out of a shirt. Two of them had only bad memories of using a sewing machine at school whilst their mum had using a sewing machine before for dress making.As Zoe had a "bucket list" and on that was making a cushion I was determine that she should go home with something she was proud of.

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We discussed techniques and Ann decided to make a nine patch cushion front whilst Zoe and Veronica made raw edge appliqué  cushions. The shirt front became the back of the cushion so we did not have to worry about fastenings. 
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 Zoe drew out her own flower and then managed to sew around the edge accurately using both a hand and electric machine. Veronica decided to put a bird sitting on a branch onto her cushion front.
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 These were the completed cushions below. You can't see the tiny bird legs that Veronica stitched under her bird but she had excellent control of her sewing machine. 
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I was so pleased to show that sewing is not a scary thing to do but too many people seem to have very negative experiences that come from school. The best part of the day was when everyone said that they had to confidence to go and make another one at home.   

You can read all about Zoe's day here