Belated birthday present

I made these cushions for my sister for her birthday and gave them to her when we met up at her daughter's wedding on the weekend - a few weeks late.

This was my first attempt with dyeing silk in the microwave and I was very pleased with the effect. I then free machined wavy lines over them.

Knit, felt, stitch

I made these cushions by firstly knitting together three yarns: a 5-ply wool, a feather-type yarn and an eyelash-type yarn. I then needle-felted the knitted piece and finished it off with free motion machine embroidery.

I worked swirls all over this one.

For this one, I just stitched wavy lines horizontally and vertically but then added cords made by crocheting the three yarns plus a gold yarn together.

More recycled denim

Two more cushions made from recycled blue jeans.

In this one, I worked rows of serpentine stitch all over.

 I just stitched lines parallel  to the seams in this one.

Christmas dresses

Here's Emma in her Christmas dress (the photo was taken at Christmas time but it's taken a while for me to get around to posting it).

And here is Emma's baby sister, Olivia, in her Christmas outfit. Olivia arrived just a few days before Christmas, so she had to wait a while for her outfit. As for the slightly large hat, she outgrew the small size before I finished it, so I skipped the medium size and made a large one. It's still a bit too big but she will probably grow into it very soon.

EMMA

I made these cushions for Emma for Christmas. She enjoys playing with them and keeps them on her bed.

They have plain purple backs, as you can see in the E and M in this photo.

Everybody's wearing blue jeans

So sang the Skyhooks . . . but I'm more interested in what happens to the jeans when they wear out or no longer fit. I like the way denim fades as it ages and I've been collecting old jeans for several years. And I've finally got around to recycling some of them.

First I made a notebook cover for my son (I tried rotating this photo but it looked odd).

And then I made two cushions. I tried machine-stitching rows of stitching parallel to each seamline on this one but the squares kept distorting, so then I did the stitching by hand, with a button thread for emphasis. I found it difficult to stitch through the thickness of denim, plus some wadding underneath, and it took ages.

I machine-stitch rows diagonally across this one and I really like the finished texture.

Retro cushion

I found this piece of fabric in my stash. Although I have a reasonably sized stash, I know where most of the fabrics came from but not this one. It must have been given to me in a bundle of other things. I don't know how old it is but, based on a burn test, it seems to be a poly-cotton. The pattern looks as if it could date from the 1970s or 1980s.

I particularly like its textured weave.

There was just enough fabric to make a small, pretty cushion.