In the Spring Garden - the strawflower cushion

17 November, 2008
cushions, quilts, scraps

Goodness knows why I’m thinking of spring when the weather here in Brisbane the last few days has been either atrociously steamy and hot, or roaring tropical stormy followed by a sudden drop in temperature!  But there’s nothing like a half hour on the treadmill with the English Country Homes to set your mind a-spinning with prettiness and inspiration.

See the cushion with the buttons?  I’ve seen a few like this lately and straight away knew how I’d make my own.  Patchwork of course :-)

After checking on cushion insert sizes at Ikea, I drew up my pattern - with my lovely Crayola markers - plundered the scraps drawer and linen closet and sewed busily for 3 hours.

I wanted a nicely textured fabric for the buttony background but with no linen teatowels on hand, had to settle for this lovely thick, knubbly  cotton teatowel with the charming illustration of a new nasal delivery bedwetting preventer!  Mum received two such delights at a boarding school conference last year - I think chopping them up for patchwork is probably the nicest thing we could do with them!  Not sure what we’ll do with the leftover picture …

The stripes were pieced, the columns sewed up, the pellon ironed on and there I was, contemplating what pen or pencil I should use to draw the one inch lines for quilting the strawflowers stems.  Thankfully, I remembered  I didn’t NEED to draw on my lovely fabric - I have my Hera marker!

I quilted the strawflowers shared stems in pale pink - I love how it looks on the white background.  I laid all my strawflowers/buttons on the top to work out a pretty order, and then - thinking nattily for once - transferred the lines carefully onto a tea-tray so I could keep the identical order when sewing.

When stitching them on, I wove the thread through the back instead of cutting it off for each button - this was a marvellous time saver and the buttons were sewn on in about 90 minutes - this was longer than it took to assemble the front!

The light is dreadful - yet again! - so these photos simply don’t do the colours justice!  I’m off to Ikea on Wednesday to buy the inserts so I’ll take some more photos of the cushions, lovely and plump, in the garden - if it stops raining long enough. 

Now - who to give them to - Mrs. Waters the piano teacher? Nanny?  Carol Ann?   Hmmm…

p.s. aren’t packets of Beutron buttons the best thing!  Hopefully soon I’ll have jars of every colour. :0

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