My First Tutorial Ever!!

I'm sitting here with a crazy little grin on my face because I am sooo excited to be doing my first little tutorial. I hope somebody out there thinks it's nice and might actually try it! I've made quite a few of these cushions and they really do make a great gift or keepsake!

Here goes....

Yesterday I was browsing in an op shop and found a few checked shirts that are great for making cushions. The best part about using a shirt is that if you use the buttoned part of the shirt for the cushion backing... then you don't have the mission of making the back close properly or neatly because it's already done for you!

1. Get yourself a shirt and chop it the width you want your cushion to be. Don't forget to leave some seam allowance, a 1cm will do!

It should look like this now...

2. Cut yourself 2 rectangles from the shirt. They need to be the same width as the backing.... and then cut yourself a big rectangle of plain cotton fabric to applique on. (mine's very creased, I know!)

I'm not giving measurements because you should just make it the size you want. It's rather eezy peezy once you've got the rectangle backing... Just measure off that. As long as you have your 1cm seam allowance, you should be fine!

3. Sew the the 3 rectangles to make up the front of the cushion. If you don't think the front and back of your cushion are the same size, just lie them right sides facing each other and trim where it needs to be trimmed.

4. I've done some applique on my cushion using felt and embroidery floss and embroidered a few stars onto it and added a few buttons.... There is so much you can do... Below are other examples of what you could do on your cushion!

5. Pin the back and front of cushion right sides facing each other, buttons must be facing in ..... then sew around the cushion, using a 1cm seam allowance. Turn it the right way round and there you have it! I've sewn a topstitch around the whole cushion (0.5cm from the edge) ... it just looks nice but it's not necessary!

Here are another 2 ideas for cushions.....

I made this cushion for my son by using one of his 'favourite but too small' t's for the middle panel of the cushion. You could use a part of a dress, blankie... whatever. It makes a super keepsake!

Another idea is embroidering a picture your child has drawn like I have done here. If you don't know how to embroider but want to learn, here is a great site!

Soooo... that's that then! Hope the tutorial was okay! Please leave any comments or criticism. I would love to hear from you! Raewyn xox

My burpclothes were a hit! Yay!

burpcloth and onesie

The baby shower was great! I made the same gift for both ladies, but with different appliques on them. One with fish and the other with a bird on it. I took photos of the fish one but forgot to take of the bird one. They turned out really well, and everyone thought the gifts were really nice, so I'll definitely be making some to put in my madeit shop. I'm thinking of doing a tute on them as well.. maybe some time next week! Really enjoying my sewing these days... just a pain that I don't have my own room/space to sew in. Can't wait for our house to be built, so I can have a room of my own and don't have to clean up the dining room table for meal times!

Oh the joys of parenthood!

Still nothing to show on my little blog...

Both of my kids decided that it would be a great time to get sick! One darling with a nasty cold and the other darling with some horrible bowel infection called mesenteric adenitis. Poor things, hope they both get better very soon...

Anyway, I have 2 baby showers coming up and I promised a friend I would make her child a little tag blankie, which I have actually made and will post a pic of it as soon as it has dried. Baby shower prezzies - not done yet! Still deciding what to do.. so many ideas, so little time!

I thought I'd start putting pics on of other things I have sewn..... so today... I shall put a pic of the quilt I made for my brand new (actually not-so-brand-new 4 month old) niece in South Africa. xox

WELCOME TO ILOVESTITCHES

Hi everyone and welcome to my blog

I've started this blog to... well... just to try keep up with the times! I look at so many blogs and think to myself, "hey, I want to do that"! And so here I am.. blogging!!

So.. the reason I'm doing this blog is actually to try and kick start my little home business called ilovestitches. I'm just starting out and have a shop @ www.madeit.com.au/ilovestitches. I originally started out doing machine embroidery about 2 years ago, but my embroidery machine got damaged on our move from South Africa to Australia...which is a long, sad story that I will bore you with one day when I have nothing else to write here, and so the machine is now sitting at the techinician - unfixable! Amazingly, there is some good that has come out of it, that being, I have started doing much more sewing and I'm even doing some hand embroidery (beginner phase). And now my brain is in a mush because of all the ideas swarming around in this little head of mine!

I better get to work, so I can actually have something to put on this blog!

Raewyn