Let's talk cushions.

 Such a lot has happened since last we met, so much in fact that I'm not sure what you've seen and what you haven't, so today I think we'll just talk....

CUSHIONS! 

Not just any old cushions...MarmaladerRose cushions.

Yes, cushions will ease me into blog posting very nicely.

There are rather a lot of them now... these are my answer to a print problem I've got. You see so far I've not been able to successfully recreate my original felt pictures as paper prints. I get asked quite a lot if I do limited edition prints...or ...any prints at all in fact.

 It seems I'm able to have my work reproduced on fabric very well but when it comes to art paper, they just appear flat and dead. Not at all the quality that I expect. It's very strange.

 But the cushions... soft suedey cushions...

 Washable suedey cushions...

They look really rather wonderful...

Not to mention feeling rather soft and scrummy too!

They have on more than one occasion been mistaken for felted wool. Many a hand has stroked and caressed expecting to feel wool and stitches but instead has glided over their velvety finish.

So maybe we'll just stick to cushions, oh! And the odd greeting card or two. 

Till next time (and hopefully it will be sooner rather than later)

love Fi x

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/MarmaladeRose

Cushion Love

Hello from the hills!

It was a bit blustery and very fresh but well worth the climb! Only joking we drove up in the car, lol. This is the view from the Buttertubs Pass looking down at the valley. 

We had a little ride up to a small viewing area after dropping our daughter off at our local train station. Would you like to see that too? It's very pretty, well for a train station anyway. Here it is.

Small but perfectly formed. Very pretty and remote, surrounded by nothing but hills and moorland. Beautiful in the sunshine but on a stormy winters evening it's more Wuthering Heights, burrrr!

Back indoors and I've been busy stitching away on my sewing machine. I've been making  more cushion covers, this time with digital prints from some new felted wool pictures. 

You can't tell from the photo but these are printed onto faux suede fabric and feel lovely and... well... suede-y. 

The backs are also a faux suede fabric in a neutral colour and all of it washable too. I sound very smug don't I? Well I can tell you ladies...I certainly don't feel smug when I'm sewing them, I don't find it a very easy fabric to work with at all. It kind of sticks to the cutting mat and won't slide into position. I wouldn't say it frays but long clingy strands come off when your cutting it but...when you touch the finished piece, if feels luuuverly!

And just to give you an idea of size here I am trying to balance on the kitchen table while holding a cushion in one hand and taking a picture in the mirror with my phone in the other, at the same time trying to look relaxed as if I do this all the time.

These cushions, along with a few previous designs are now available in my Etsy Shop.

Till next time.

love Fi x

1930's style patchwork cushion.

Ooo...you are a lovely bunch, thank you for all the Granny Pilley quilt love and Sally...get your great granny's quilt top out and make it into a quilt anyway you can! I'm sure if your great granny had a sewing machine at the time she would have used it. You need to give it life so that it can be loved and used as it was meant to be. Go on you can do it, we're all behind you.
After my first little experiment with joining hexagons by machine I thought I'd have another go, so I used some lovely 1930's style fabrics that I had left over from a previous project.

As you can probably tell by the photos, it's a little bit fiddly, but still certainly quicker than piecing by hand.

This the front before I pressed it.

There we go, pressed and a border attached basically so I could see the hexys framed. I only had a few squares of the 30's fabric, that's why it's only a small patch of hexys.

Not sure what to do next or even what I was making, I cut little 1 x 2 inch rectangles from the scraps of fabric left from each one of the squares that I'd cut the hexys from. (I hate to waste anything, lol.) And then I stitched them together and attached them around the edge. Once I done this my piece was almost large enough to make the front of a cushion cover, so another little trip to my fabric cupboard and another round of edging and I was ready to quilt my piece.

I chose to quilt the patchwork as I don't like to have all the raw edges of the patches inside my cushion cover, I like to have a backing on it so that all those raw edges are hidden away. So as I was putting a backing fabric on I thought I might as well put a piece of wadding in between. I laid my patchwork on a slightly larger piece of wadding and then laid these both on a larger piece of muslin. It's done this way because your work will shrink up slightly as you quilt it and you don't want to find that you're loosing your backing behind the edges of your front!

Once I'd finished quilting the front I trimmed off the excess muslin and wadding and stitched on a simple envelope back, and Bobs your uncle!

A 1930's style patchwork cushion, lovely in the kitchen or perfectly perfect for a little persons playroom, very soft and snuggly.

Next time we really must catch up with some felting before I forget about it completely!

love fi x

Crinoline Cushions.

Today I am thanking you all on behalf of my Mum and Dad who were very touched at all the lovely comments you left on the previous post. My Mum emailed me and said...

"Please thank all your lovely bloggy friends and let them know how great it was to read all those very lovely comments, it makes you feel really special . They don't know how much that cheered me up after all the formal form filling etc. that has had to be done recently... seems to be no end to it!!!"
(My Gran died a few weeks ago so Mum and Dad have had a lot to sort out.)

There you go ladies, don't underestimate the power of a few kind words here and there. You really made their day, but I know all about that. After all you make my day, most days!
Oh! Nearly forgot...Rachael. I believe the Hardanger pattern that my Dad is embroidering is inspired by a picture but he makes up the pattern himself. (He quite often does his own thing. lol.) The crinoline lady cushions have been made by moi for a
Christmas craft fair.

And lastly I thought I'd share a little bit of the design process for a new project with you. Don't laugh... this is where I scribbled an idea for a cat softie. It's very glamorously squished at the bottom of my shopping list. Well I found myself waiting for an hour in the doctors surgery and you know what it's like, your mind just wanders sometimes. lol.

love fi x

Re Cushion Recipe

This is the back for those who asked (Claire). I actually put this picture in the original post but took it out at the last minute as I thought no one would really be interested, lol.

Luckily the embroidered linen was the perfect size to fit neatly over the top of the cushion making the perfect envelope back. I like plenty of overlap, I can't be doing with cushion backs that gape open, yuk! This one also had it's own pretty lace trim already on the edge.

I'm off to gift wrap it now as it has already found a new home.

Yay!

love Fi x

Cushion Recipe

Take a piece of delicious vintage floral fabric.
and a slice of scrummy embroidered linen.
Add a length of luscious lace.
and a snippet or two of velvet ribbon.

fiddle and faff for a little while.

Carefully smoothing and stroking until...

you have one totally tasty cushion ready to serve lightly plumped on your favourite sofa.

Hooky Ta-daa!

Hello all. Things have been very busy here in the MarmaladeRose household lately. Wonderful Man and I have just returned from a lovely little break in the Cotswolds. (One of my favourite places) But more about that another time. Not only has child #1 found himself a full time job but he's also passed his 2 year diploma course and earned himself a place at his chosen university, HOORAH!

I've just had an email from a Portuguese interior design/craft magazine asking to use 3 of my crochet projects in its next issue! Friends and family are queueing up to come and visit over the next couple of weeks so it's not going to get any quieter around here for a while yet.

So today I thought we'd keep it simple and have a quiet meander through some crochet loveliness.
I've had these crochet circles multiplying in my in my woolly yarn corner (it's actually 3 shopping baskets stuffed at my end of the sofa in the sitting room) for months now with the idea of making them into a blanket. Only I seem to have misplaced the cream yarn that was to join them all together. Yes friends, somewhere in my attic there is a large bag with about 8 balls of cream yarn that I have carefully stashed away in a safe place for about the last 7 years. It even moved the 120miles with us when we moved house. Can I find it now though?
Nope! Not a chance.

Never mind. Lets do something else with them instead. Cushions!

Now I have to confess I'm not a lover of crochet cushions.

But I do love these! They've just grabbed me and given me a big warm squeezy hug! Mmmm...I'm really quite taken with them.
Beautiful soft double knitting yarn, a mix of easy care acrylic and warm soft wool... delicious.

I took a leaf out of Lucy's book over at Attic24 and used a woolly jumper to make the back of the cushion. Check out that neat hand stitching, I was a quite amazed how good it looked too, lol.

Plumply stuffed with brand new feather pads. Not bad for the side you never see.

All colourful and cuddly, I just need to stroke and caress them a couple more times....

Lovely!

Well I've started this year with real gusto my friends! (Lets hope I can keep it up, lol)

I'll apologise now for the speed with which I whizz you through this post but my little sewing machine has been so busy over the first 20 days of 2011 that I'm afraid we'll get behind with each other.

So without further ado lets get this post on the road...

Do you remember this beautiful piece of embroidery? I found it dirty and crumpled in a box that I bought from a charity shop labelled 'Granny Pilleys embroidery' well over a year ago.

Gorgeous isn't it?

At the moment there is a lack of comfy sofa cushions in the MarmaladeRose household due to me having a tizzy fit just before Christmas and chucking out our old worn and threadbare cushion covers. I did of course being the thrifty madam that I am, cut off the zippers and pass on the worn almost pancake flat inner pads to Sneaky Dog for her bed. (and very pleased she was with them too) So there has been a dearth of cushions on Wonderful Mans sofa which hasn't gone unnoticed I can tell you.

Being the good wifey that I am, I thriftily (I think we'll be seeing a lot of that word this year) rummage around in the numerous boxes stashed in the loft for said piece of fabric, I gave it a wash and hey presto it looked shipshape and shiny!(and smelt much better too!)

I did tremble a bit before I cut into the fabric. It's such a fine piece of embroidery that I did wonder whether or not I should put it in a picture frame and hang it on the wall. But then I reasoned with myself that textiles are meant to be touched, lets face it how many of us can walk through a department store without fingering a garment or two as we glide past.

Any how, I'm sure Granny Pilley would rather it was adorning one of Dunnelms finest feather cushion pads on Wonderful Mans sofa rather than scrunched up in the corner of a cardboard box never to see the light of day.

And this is the back, little green, velvet button loops finish it off.
I even managed to find 3 buttons in my stash with a wavy design on them to match the fabric.
(Apologies for the very poor light, but it's been crap here, it's like living in a hobbit hole!)

Next is a quilted patchwork cushion with a vintage vibe. This one is NOT on Wonderful Mans sofa but sitting prettily in my Folksy shop waiting for someone with infinite good taste and a space on their bed/chair for a some embroidered and patched scrummyness.

No attention has been spared here. The back fastens with 2 embroidered covered buttons and coloured lace button loops. I'm on a roll now girls.

I've also made 3 bunnies for my Folksy shop, this unusual soft green one has already hopped off to pastures new though. (Just as well really as I was very temped to keep her for myself, tut, tut!)

Another Springtime bag has been carefully completed, actually there have been 2, but the pretty pink one I made was snaffled up by a friend before I could even photograph it! This one started out as a tray cloth, but life had been hard on her and she had some pretty grotty tea stains on her bottom. OO er! Notice the hobbity lack of light again!

Talking of tea, (Good link eh? My posts aren't just thrown together you know.)
Talking of tea...

I've been making padded removable liners for these vintage embroidered tea cosies.

Put the kettle on Polly!

(Yes I know they are budgies but I couldn't think of anything for a budgie!)

Now this one IS mine!
(Note to self; Must start using a teapot.)

Phew! I think we're up to date now. Well actually we're not because I know I have something else up in the attic that's finished but it is awaiting some daylight to be photographed.

Anyway... Lastly, this is my work basket today.
Can you spy those little embellished hearts?

Yep! I know. I'm a big tease...

till next time

love fi x