Friday, March 9, 2012

Cushion Covers Revealed!

I can finally show you the pillow I made for my partner in the Cushion Cover Swap on Craftster, because she received it yesterday!  Interestingly enough, I received from her yesterday too (even though I sent mine a week before she sent hers--what's up with that?), so I can also show you what she made for me.

In the swap, we all made covers to fit a 14" pillow form.  According to Maimy's questionnaire, she likes keys (among other things), and since she uses keys in her avatar, I used that as the subject of the cushion cover I made for her.   The colors are based on her preferences on her questionnaire, too. 


I have some brown fabric with keys on it, but I didn't want her pillow to be brown, so I traced them from that fabric and drew them onto the linen I used as the center of her pillow.  Then I outline-stitched each key, and looked at them for a while, before deciding that YES, I CAN fill in all ten keys with embroidery!


Each key took about 2 hours to embroider.  This was the first large embroidery project I've done, and I loved it!  It reminded me of coloring in a coloring book!  I am eager to do more embroidery projects, but at the moment I have a LARGE project with a ton of handwork that I am working on for the Invite Your Partner swap, so other things must wait a few more weeks until that is done.

After finishing the pillow top, I layered it with batting and backing, and hand-quilted around the edge of the linen.  Then I added a back, with a simple envelope closure (and a piece of velcro), and it was done!  Maimy says she loves it.  Yay!


And, here's what the talented Maimy sent to me, based on my love of koi and goldfish:


Isn't it gorgeous?  The lotus, and the head, fins, and center line of the fish are painted on using a hand-cut stencil.  The fish scales are a combination of embroidery, fabric, and beads, as you can see in the close-up below.


Here's the back of the cover, with another lotus.  I left the snap closure undone so you can see that she sewed on her personal label--that's so cool!

Thank you, Maimy, you did a fantastic job on my cushion cover, and I LOVE it!

3 comments:

LimeRiot said...

What wonderful cushions! I'm glad you guys had fun swapping together.

Leslie, I think you need to join one of the Hoopla swaps now :).

And I can't wait to see what you're doing for OGD in the IYP!! I've seen previews of what she's making you and it's awesome.

Unknown said...

what awesome covers the two of you made for each other! these are a real treat to see!

Unknown said...

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