Completely Handmade Cushions

I put a picture a few weeks ago of some chunky wool I had, and decided in the end to make some new cushions from it. My husband was not keen on this idea, as the last cushions that I knitted looked lovely at first, but went saggy quite quickly. But I found a lovely pattern on ravelry Knitted ZigZag Cushion, and convinced him and myself that if I made these with slightly smaller needles than suggested, combined with the fair isle pattern meaning wool will be carried across the back, they would knit up into a nice firm, dog-proof, fabric.

I think I was right, but I guess only time will really tell. The pattern has a stripe of moss stitch at the top and bottom. I did start off with this, but because I did not have the right sized needles, it was much wider that the rest of the knitting. So I back unravelled this at the very end - not that easy a thing to do.  I really love the way the colours look together.

So I had quite a bit of wool left over, but not enough to make another cushion from this zigzag pattern. I started off trying to knit a very simple fair isle design, just with spots, but half-way through realised that I was going to run out of wool before it was a square. So that was unravelled too, and cushion number two is a bit simpler, just rows of stripes.

 
I have called this my "completely handmade cushions", as the intention had been to machine sew the fabric backs. I don't have my own sewing machine here, but thought I could use my daughter's mini John Lewis one. But unfortunately we can't get this to work - the stitch just keeps going long and then short. So the only solution seemed to be a bit of hand-sewing. I do enjoy a bit of hand stitching, but this was a bit much, as it involved removing the zips from the old cushions, sewing them into a new back, hemming the back pieces, and them sewing the knitted fronts to the thick back fabric with wool.

I am really pleased with the finished cushions, but am not going to sew anything by hand for a while. Finally I can start on my mail order wool.

Just a reminder that there is still plenty of time left to join in my Ginx Woolly Linx party for April. Click on the photo above or at the top of the page to find the party. I would love to see what you have been working on this month.