Cross stitch margaritas cushion

This cushion was sold as a kit from Vervaco but was actually only the cross stitch itself so I had to find the cushion and backing fabric to make it up.  The kit was a present and not the type that I would normally pick but I still completed it. The kit came with plenty of yarns, even though it may not look it at times, there were plenty of every colour. The instructions also recommend that you separate the yarns into their different colours at the start - I didn't do this straight away but wished I had, the greens were very close in colour as were the yellows. The kit was lacking a graph pattern to follow so you had to rely on the colour printed which was confusing at time and meant at times I had to wait for some natural light to complete sections.  I did use the photo at times to try and guide me.

When  making it up I didn't bother to make an opening, I figured that it wouldn't be the type of cushion that would be used much. The backing fabric was some I had in my stash following the making of cushions for the lounge.

This cushion is a little bit special as both my son and daughter had a go at completing some of it and it has inspired my daughter to get on with one of her tapestry kits that she had for Christmas.

Cushions

Having finally got the lounge sorted in terms of furniture, decorating and curtains (tedious post to follow later on those!) my other half decided that we needed cushions to match. Having seen the cost of them on the high street and wanting to some to match I stupidly volunteered to make them.  The first was a straight forward stripey one that was in exactly the same fabric as the curtains and was done quickly mainly to keep my other half happy that I was actually going to do them.

The next was more ambitious and I decided to do the applique striped flower motif, being new to applique I found myself using the wrong type of bonding web and had a frustrating time with the sewing machine needle getting gummed up and the thread breaking.  To make matters worse I then tried piping round the edges - I still haven't worked out how to neatly turn the corners with the piping and they ended up a disaster. I then cheated and covered over the corners so that they wouldn't show.

The flower cushion took rather a long time to make and other half was getting more and more annoyed with the lack of progress so I went back to simpler designs for the next two to get them done.

I still have a couple more to do but this is not going to be for a little while, too many other UFO's to be finishing off.

Tapestry cushion

When I started this project I hadn't done a tapestry since I was a child, I think I grew out of them as I don't find them to be particularly creative, they are mainly a glorified paint by numbers. But then I saw this kit by "Cleopatra's needle" and was drawn to the colours and pattern as it complemented a bedroom we have and the stitch size was not too large so looked quite attractive.  It has taken about 2 years to complete the sewing part but I still have to stitch it all together to make the cushion.

Update - I was all ready to stitch it together but couldn't convince myself to without stretching it, even by my standards it was too far out. It is currently tacked to an old table top in hopefully the right shape drying out from the water spray

The kit itself came with some lavender to put in the cushion, I was apprehensive about having it floating around inside and getting tangled in the tapestry itself so I made a little extra pouch to go between the two layers of wadding provided to stuff it.

I was a bit lazy and just used the thread that was already on my machine as I figured it would be very hidden.

Making the cushion up was really easy, I just machine sewed the front to the back leaving a small gap for turning and stuffing. I trimmed my edges to just over a centimetre and cut off the corners, turned it the right way round, stuffed and then hand stitched up the gap. And here's the finished item:

It only took me about 3 years to complete it!