Floral Cushion Finally Finished

This week I have finally finished sewing up my floral cushion.  As I said in my last post.  I made a basic cushion cover to sew the flowers onto.  I used 4 shades on the front – but you can’t see them now it is covered in flowers.  It could have been knitted in one colour, but I didn’t have enough of any one of the colours – so using a few different ones seemed the best solution.    The back is completely different.  The basic cushion cover pattern is taken from the book “Finishing Techniques for Hand Knitters” by Jane Crowfoot. 

When I had finished the basic cover, I sewed together the flowers and pinned them on.  I had made 30 but decided that I needed to make 3 more.   I then sewed them on and lastly sewed in the ends.  Just sewing in the ends took a couple of evenings.

I think I am happy with the end result.  It is how I intended it to look.  I handed over to my boss on Tuesday.  I think she liked it.  She said that she couldn’t stop looking at it – so I think that means she did. 

Even before I had handed the cushion over – I had cast on another shawl!  It is easy with no difficult decisions to make. 

Floral Cushion

During the last lockdown I was having a conversation with my boss about knitting and crochet and she told me that she liked a crocheted cushion but it was very expensive.  I decided to have a go at making one.  The original was a knitted cushion covered with crocheted flowers and is actually probably well worth the expensive price tag due to the amount of work involved. 

My version is not crocheted – I don’t do crochet unless it can’t be avoided.  I have decided to make a knitted version.  At the moment I am working on the flowers.

It took me some time to decide how to knit a suitable flower and then how to make the centre.  I wanted to have 6 petals because flowers with 6 petals fit together better than those with an odd number of petals.  I had hoped to sew a flower together and then photograph it for this blog but  I don’t seem to work like that.  I have knitted a lot of petals and centres – but so far I have not sewn any of them together.

As I have no idea how many flowers I need to make – I have laid some out on a cushion.  I think I will need at least 30.

When I have knitted all of the flowers – I will then have to make a cushion cover to sew them onto.  I have a rough idea of how I am going to make it – but I may change my mind.   I think it will take a couple more weeks to get this cushion finished and then I will get back to my partly knitted shawls and throws.

Crazy Patchwork Knitted Cushion

At the moment I am still working on a new version my previously unloved cardigan but I am thinking ahead – what am I going to knit next?  I think I may do another carpet bag using my adaptation of the crazy patchwork idea from Myra Wood’s book. 

 

Several years ago I did something similar to make a circular cushion as an entry for competition to celebrate the 25^th anniversary of the Knitting and Crochet Guild.

I had to include silver but otherwise you could use any colour.  I just used some colours that I had left over from other projects.  The cushion was made from the lovely but almost discontinued Colinette Fandango.  However, I still have several skeins left in my stash to use for the new bag.