Happy cushions!

Lucy here!

This has been a fun challenge and I have really enjoyed stitching Daisy's bird's nest picture

I love the way she draws and tried to be as faithful to the original as possible although it was quite hard to trace as I didn't have access to a photocopier to make the lines bolder.

As it was Daisy's picture I decided to use some of her clothes to make it into a cushion. The pink gingham is from a pair of Boden trousers that were Dorothy's and then Daisy's and the denim is from a lovely hand-me-down pinafore dress that had a zip up the front. You can't see the denim very well from the front as the cushion inner is a bit big at the moment - I'm waiting for it to squish down!

The zip came in very handy for the opening on the back and I think it looks nice enough to have this way round too - especially with those lovely recycled pockets!!! I was really quite happy with it until I saw what Lesley had been doing................................

I decided to make two stitcheries - using one of Minx's and one of Sausage Monster's pictures. Believe me I'll do anything to avoid an argument!!!

The cushion on the left is Minx's design of the Moog making the sofa nice and hairy. I buried all my adult needs to make it 'right' and reproduced it exactly as Minx had drawn it - i.e. with the sofa lines going through the dog etc.

The one on the right is Monster's lovely drawing of our house - he's even drawn the downstairs loo extension on the side of the house :)

Their original drawings were on A5 paper so I enlarged them a couple of times on the photocopier and use dressmakers carbon paper to trace the images onto a piece of Scrapstore calico.

Minx's was a simple matter of back stitching over the traced lines using colours to represent our sofa and our dog!

Monster had drawn his picture with a thick orange felt tip which got even thicker with enlarging. As I don't have the patience or inclination to do the whole thing in satin stitch I used orange fabric paint and then stitched around the edges.

The cushion fronts were made with some patchwork fabric from the Hobbycraft sale basket. I kept the backs as simple as possible with an envelope closure - made from a nice big bit of Scrapstore fabric.

I'm really pleased with how these came out and may have to make more for the other sofa. Then there's the armchair. Maybe some floor cushions.....................

As we have said before we would love you to join in with any of our challenges if you feel the urge. Gina asked if she could come out to play this week! She mentioned that she didn't have any little people handy to draw her pictures. I emailed her this one that the Minx had done at the same time as her Moog picture.

Isn't she lovely?

Beautifully appliqued and freehand machine stitched outline!!!! I'm going to have to try doing that myself - it looks scary, especially the curly hair. Minx told me she thinks Gina is 'wicked' - such praise and so well deserved :)

Thanks so much for coming out to play Gina!

P.S From Lucy

I just have to show you the picture Fred has drawn which will be my next stitchery - once I have done all the things I HAVE to get done!

I thought they were aliens but apparently they are thumb-wrestlers!