Christmas Crafting

For the last couple of  years I've been wanting to make Mum a Christmas cushion to add to the decorations in her room at the Aged Care Facility she lives in.  Finally, on a whim, I got in and made one after seeing a picture of one made by Gemini Stitches, which was, in turn, based on the Scrap Jar Stars tutorial.

I have quite a little Christmas fabric stash, over a range of styles.  Some dates from when we were first married and I attended some craft classes and we made Christmas decorations.  The fabrics have almost progressed from just being "dated" to almost being classed as "vintage" or "retro".  Anyway, they worked beautifully for this cushion.  I did buy the fabric for the  binding, but everything else was from stash.  Some of the fabrics came from Mum's stash too.  I particularly like the little koalas.  The  striped fabric in the bottom right hand square features in a few of Mum's Christmas projects, including one of her aprons.

I kept the quilting simple, just outlining the sixteen patch, cross hatching the small white squares and echo quilting the star.

Even though the fabrics are old, I think it has a nice, fresh, modern look to it.  

A simple envelope closing finishes off the back.

The cover finished at 15 inches square and I used an 18 inch cushion insert.

I liked the finished product so much that I decided to make a second one for us.

It's pretty much identical.  However, there is a different fabric on a couple of the star points, as there wasn't enough of the one I used for Mum's.  Also, you may notice that I have tapered off the corners of the cushion.  I was always taught by Mum to do this as it stops the cushion having really pointy corners.  I wasn't sure how it would work with a bound cushion, but thought I would experiment.

It worked better than I thought.

Once again, I just used a simple envelope closing on the back, but there wasn't enough of any one fabric, so I just decided to use two.  It works fine for the short time the cushion will be out on display.

I really enjoyed making these cushions and now feel inspired to try something else.  We'll see how I go, or if I run out of puff.