Natural Crochet Cushion

I had a shabby old crochet cushion on my chair and it was in desperate need of replacement.  

I very rarely buy cushions they are the simplest thing ever to make. 
Using some lovely bluefaced Leicester wool I set to.  

The wool I had was 4 ply which was way too flimsy for my needs so I caked two balls together to make double thickness wool to work with and I used a 4.5mm hook.
  
The pattern I used was this Round Cushion Cover from the Cute and Easy Crochet book by Nikki Trench but I was not entirely happy with my interpretation of it.

You can make out the ridge on this one at each round change and I don’t like it.  As neat as I am with my joins it’s rarely invisible and with this being all one colour I think it stands out even more.  

I frogged it several times but eventually I just had a word with myself and went with it.  This is never going to be on show anyway as it is the back.

For the front I went for a continuous spiral, using a stitch marker to mark my row start I just continued on and on making one large spiral.  

I based the pattern on the other one for the quantity of increases on the rows and it worked a treat.  This little thing used up three full balls of 50g 4 ply (doubled up).  For the scallop border I used part of a little ball of Jamiesons spindrift and I like the contrast.

This chair is in daily use so I couldn't fuss it up with a flower in the middle as it would just get squished, besides I really like the simplicity of the spiral shape and don’t want to hide that.

I took the zip out of the old broken cushion cover and added it to this one, as I need to be able to remove my cushion covers.

 (see that nasty ridge, grrr)
 To add the zip to crochet; a simple mattress stitch along each edge of the zip in the same wool gives a nice edge to join knit or crochet work to.  I added a row of treble crochet around the rest of the cushion to keep the shape right with the zip in there and I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

It’s nice to see these two together, one knit, one crochet, one square, one round both in the same wool but such a different effect.

How much can one woman rant about a cushion?

I'm done!

Back Soon

Gifts Made, Given and not Given ...

First up I would like to share something I made last week from Issue 4 of Mollie Makes. 

My lovely friend and I were perusing this issue and she looked longingly at these and said, Ohhh I wish I could crochet I love these (she did the doe eyes too), I quickly set to and came up with these, Mary go Rounds.  I made them for her whilst she was on holiday and handed them over yesterday.

 

I could fancy some of these myself and will need to make time to make some, just need some more plastic bangles from the pound shop first.

Said friend also had crochet on the mind whilst on holiday and bought me this beautiful hand crochet cushion from Greece, it's just perfect and sooo pretty I love it.

It will obviously have to live on my bed to keep the boys grubby mits off it!

In other news my eldest started college last week in Durham City, which now gives me the perfect excuse to spend time in my beautiful hometown.  

 Picture from http://www.walworthcastle.co.uk/places.php

I don't often get the chance to visit Durham so I spent a while showing my boy the sights, best shortcuts and of course which pub is best to start the pub crawl from...

This trip afforded me the opportunity to drop in on a North East Jewellery Maker whom I follow on Twitter and have been in contact with, the lovely lady Laura the maker and owner behind Vintage Princess Jewellery.

I took a couple of snaps of her lovely setup.

 

I had intended just to browse but I couldn't almost immediately I spotted a beautiful necklace that I thought would make a beautiful Christmas present for one of my friends, so I bought it.

  The closer I got to home the more I loved it and so I kept it!  Isn't that terrible, but it was rather nice.  Laura has an online shop too, if you fancy a browse, beware though there is lots of things you will want!

Right I'm off to crack on with makes for the Autumn Swap, and I have an idea for a little giveaway soon.

~ ♥ Back Soon ♥ ~ 

The Softest Crochet Cushion

Remember a little while back I made a colourful crochet cushion following the guidance from the brilliant Lucy - Attic24 I made these little summer garden granny squares and they eventually morphed into a cushion.

Well I did love it very much, but my taste leans more towards the 'muted pastel' colours, so I thought that I would gather some lovely soft Baby Cashmere Yarn and knock another one up.

No two squares are alike, this confuddled my poor old brain a bit but I managed.

I laid them out on the coffee table and mixed them up many times before settling on where I wanted them to be.

This one has been a while in the making, as was almost finished but I got distracted with candles and beads ~ I have the attention span of a gnat!

It's even nice on the reverse with all the neat little single crochet (UK) lines joining it all together.

Making these little squares was a pleasure, the colours are just perfect and this yarn is so soft and such a treat to work with, every time I picked up that pink I smiled.

I was looking for a contrasting wool jumper to cut up for the back, but I found this cotton cardigan in white which I thought would be better.

Snipped and hand stitched to the front with a dainty crochet edging and little button holes.


(it's less wonky in real life honest ~ it's the cushion inside thats off kilter!)

I have put this one away for now as there is no more room on my couches, perhaps it will find a home on my bed but it does not match the Rosali set on there at the minute, for now it's stashed away unloved ~ it's yarn cruelty really, please don't report me :)

I am entering this as my April Monthly Make organised by Sexy Annie.

p.s. Don't forget there is still time to enter my giveaway - button top right of blog :)

~ ♥ TTFN ♥ ~