Cushy!

So it seems like I'm on a bit of a cushion-fest at the moment - I have gorgeous new cushions coming out my ears. Yay!

That's the beauty of being able to just make what I feel like, rather than panicking about what is going to sell. I get to experiment with colours and combinations and every single thing is a "limited edition".

(Remember this year I'm taking more of a relaaaaaaxed approach to sewing, and not freaking out about stock levels and upcoming markets and product ranges and seasonal colours. No, this year is all about just making what I feel like, and if it sells then great, and if it doesn't - well then,  I have my upcoming Christmas presents to friends and family all taken care of.)  

 So here we have two cute babushka cushions. Aren't they sweet? I love this cotton with coloured babushkas all over it ... I was going to cut it up and make lots of little small things to stretch it out, but then I thought What the hell, le'ts go for maximum impact! I've teamed it with a cute purple polka-dot on the reverse side.

And then here is another one, this time with printed babushkas on canvas, which I matched with the country-cottage inspired striped material.


The two different fabrics were sitting on my sewing table (ahem, that's the dining table actually) and as I turned around I saw them both out of the corner of my eye, and saw how well they went together.

On the reverse side I've used a supersoft pinwale corduroy in grass green. This cushion is so tactile I just want to sit there stroking it! But as much as I love this one it doesn't go in our house, so I think it's going to have to go on Etsy instead.......                            

(oh, and an update: my tres chic Parisian cushion got a great deal of interest at the market from a lovely gent who is moving into his new place on Tuesday and wants another one to go with it! Hooray! I knew I was onto a winner with that one.  .....)

Love Fridays .... and stripy cushions

As I slowly floated towards consciousness this morning, I think my first fully formed thought was: thank god it's Friday.

I love Fridays - who doesn't? - and so today I'm playing Love Fridays courtesy of Tinniegirl, as well as Hooked On, from Julia in the US. And these cushions fit in with both memes very well.

Why, you might ask?

Well, it's been a long and stressful week at work, with a new boss to adjust to, and no end of associated discoveries and revelations, each one bigger and more astonishing than the last. I'm mulling some of them over, thinking about how they affect me, but I've not made any decisions yet or really considered their impact.

But they've upended the usual sense of peace and calm I like to create around me and operate in. The sands are shifting under my feet.

I take such a sense of pleasure from symmetry in my life, you see. These two cushions here, for example. I've named them Tea In The Afternoon, and they're made from deliciously touchable coffee-coloured velvet, overlaid with individually sewn ribbons in grosgrain, braid, and satin. As you can see, the shades are all milky and chocolatey and coffee-ey. Mmm, yum. And the colour combination is soothing on its own.

Each cushion is trimmed with a different set of ribbons, but the pattern of ribbons on each cushion is symmetrical, fanning out from a single central wide black grosgrain strip. Arranging each design and sewing the ribbons on really gives me a feeling of happiness, because I can see everything in its spot, where it should be. It makes me feel calm, and serene. Like everything' organised, and perfectly placed.

I try to bring a sense of that calm into my general life as well. I have a (reasonably) neat desk at work, though it's piled high with crafty business cards and receipts and materials in amongst the papers and folders and documents. Yes it's true, I even have fabric at my Proper Work. Tragic, I know.

And at home I'd be as neat as a freakishly neat and slightly neurotic pin, if only I could convince My One True Love that he should join me in the quest for order. He is more of the "relaxed" living style, you could say. But me, even when I'm in a hotel for a single night, I unpack and lay things out neatly and hang things up and put everything into lovely, pleasing straight lines.

Life at work isn't straight at the moment. It's full of twisty-turny bends, and dead ends, and blind corners, and metaphorical assassins lurking behind doors, and it feels slightly unbalanced.

So when I get home in the evenings I'm enjoying creating straight lines and perfect symmetry, even if it's just in the tiny space contained by a cushion.