A place for everything

I love my little wire tree, my son bought it years ago for Mothers day, it has given me so much pleasure over that time. It used to have a different base, but one day it fell off a table and broke! I bought the pretty little pot it sits in and weighted it down with fishing weights, set it in some plaster and set some pretty pebbles and purls. I like to decorate it for Easter and Christmas but here it is decorated for Spring. 

The little bird box makes a great place to keep my keys – after frantic searches round the house, I decided it was much easier to have a place to put them in the hallway where they would not get lost! 

It sits upon a filing cabinet which I made this cover for from the delightful Clarke and Clarke, it really does make me think spring is here! 

Patch Pillows

I love Clarke and Clarke fabric this range called ‘the bird trail’ is one of my favourites, the birds and flowers are so pretty, I bought them at Falcon Fabrics they have a huge range of these lovely heavy weight cottons. I find them so pleasing to work with.

I want to use up every scrap which is where these cushions come in. Patchwork is perfect for making the most of every small remnant of fabric however I often struggle to cut up beautiful designs. The large pattern repeat needed large squares otherwise the design would have been completely lost, so I used 8 inch squares.

The duck egg blue background is one of my favourite colours; one of the challenges of duck egg is that it is so difficult to match, greens look odd, blues look odd, it is really only a similar combination of blue green that seems to work well. To have used the same in the edging would have resulted in a rather dull cushion, but by picking up the traces of vibrant green in the design itself has lifted the pattern really well.

Colour matching is one of the hardest elements of design I do understand the basics of colour theory, complimentary colours, tones, accents, but most of the time the ‘theory’ eludes me, I just look at a colour and it seems to sing together. Colour theory would suggest that the green does not go well with the duck egg, and most probably on a sheet of paper it doesn’t, but by picking out the green from the stem the fringing has lifted the design. If I am still short of ideas, then I look to the colour block on the selvage for clues as you can see on the left the green is the third colour.

This project was satisfyingly easy, once the accuracy of the cutting and seaming had been done, it came together nicely. The backs of the cushions are one piece of the duck egg so I can change the look depending on how I feel.

Cosy corner

Are you sitting comfortably? Then let’s begin!

This is a lovely corner of my little home. The rocking chair has been with me through many houses, when it was purchased it was a lovely light beech colour but my beloved at the time decided to use a dark stain on it. (you can scroll down to see it before it was revamped) It looked terrible and remained unloved until last year. I was moving into my own little home and deciding what needed to go or stay. I painted it pure white, and the thing I love about doing that is that the form of the piece is revealed. However, I just could not resist adding the blue polka dots to the paintwork, so easy to do! The cushions are made from gorgeous Clarke and Clarke and I love the fabric so much I bought quite a bit of it in its various guises.

If you want a co-ordinated look but not too co-ordinated, it is a good idea to buy the various different patterns of a make, not only with the tones and hues work, but they will go together well, after all that is what designers are paid for, their eye for colour and knowing instinctively what goes together.

The round cushion is one of my favourite creations manly because I love all the pretty doilies that you see in charity shops and car boot sales. Little pieces of art work, lovingly created for the bargain price of 50p.
This one is particularly lovely, it is blue, which makes it unusual, but it is also so perfectly formed with perfect tension. As a hooker myself, (the term I like to use for crocheters!) I can appreciate the sheer skill it has taken to make this delightful thing.

The difficulty is that we no longer use them in the same way, so while I could not pass up the chance to purchase these delights, I found they were stacking up in my studio with no real purpose. The rose material was a remnant, no bigger than a 1/4 metre, but I loved its vintage feel and so the rounded cushion was born. The white background was an old linen napkin. Another beautiful fabric I simply cannot resist, the quality surpasses anything you can buy now, and who uses napkins every day let alone linen ones. So I gathered these beauties together and came up with the cushion. You really don’t see many rounded cushions, so I was rather pleased with the way it came out.

The project itself was published in the May 2012 Edition of sewing world with the rocking chair published a month earlier in April. I think it is such a lovely seat to sit in and I have convinced myself that sitting and rocking while sewing burns enough calories to eat the odd biscuit or two and not feel guilty.

Here is the rocking chair before it was given a new lease of life.