The mother of them all

Well hello!  Another fabulous week to be sewing and creating and especially with it culminating in Mother’s Day it seems appropriate to do some special sewing for someone special.

I already had a store bought gift to give mum but wanted something personal to go with it.  Added to this I really wanted to try some applique and things were starting to become clear. But always a little practice first…

My inspiration came from a fabulous little pin from Flamingo Toes for some gorgeous applique feathers on a tea towel.  I would have done the tea towel but knowing my family it would be used to mop up some sort of tomato disaster… So, a cushion cover it became.  I love a good cushion cover – nothing brightens up a room quicker than a fresh cover.

Fabric Feather Applique

This is the first time I’ve tried applique although I’ve had the vliesofix (bondaweb) for quite some time.  The nice lady at the fabric shop wrote some brief instructions on how to use it but the interwebs is also awash with instructions.

I decided to up-cycle an old work shirt for this – a favourite that I hadn’t spilled anything on or accidentally written on.  Very unusual for me…

As this was my first go at applique, I tried zigzag on the edges but didn’t like the look – then I progressed to another stitch on my machine that kind of looks like blanket stitch but not quite which I still wasn’t happy with.  After some frustrating unpicking I decided to slowly stitch just on the inside of the shape with a plain stitch on the longest length.  It’s not as dramatic but I prefer the subtle stitching on the feather shape.

Well, as you can imagine I was so happy with the end product here that I decided on another cushion – for mum for mother’s day.  My mum loves owls, and although she likes her owls to look like owls there was no way I was going to do a brown cushion…. So, some secret sewing later I came up with this…

The Owl

I used two coordinating fat quarters of floral fabrics and some pale yellow for the eyes.  Again just a simple straight stitch to “applique”.  The template was just an image I googled and cut out. I added two little wooden buttons for the eyes ‘cos the stitching was awful but they needed something to bring them out. The white it sits on is another fat quarter from the stash – I really broke into my good stuff for this one!

Mum was really pleased with it and it now sits pride of place on her bed.  It’s hard to know what to get mum – she never knows what she wants (or needs), but as long as it has an owl on it then you’re half way there.

Hope you all had a lovely day with families [or banishing the family and spending some time sitting and relaxing or getting your craft on].

Sonya

 

 

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