Patchwork cushion – House

Patchwork cushion – House

Welcome to the new rubric of cOOking TiKi There isn’t any connection with my cooking, but it’s another hobby that inspires me and takes a lot of my passion and free time. As I have made a good amount of handiworks, I decided to share them with you. And if I can inspire you to create something based on my models, I’d be more than happy! To do this, you only need a sewing machine, a few pieces of fabric and lots of enthusiasm. It is not even necessary to have a sophisticated machine with many options, I use two basic stitches – straight and zigzag.

Since I have no professional training in sewing, my technique and my explanations may not come up to the scratch sometimes, but this is how it worked to me.

There is a good amount of years (I was about 14), my mom taught me the basics of  serious sewing (as purses and clothes for my dolls, I started making since the age of 8-9), i.e. how to use the patterns in the Burda magazine, how to operate the sewing machine, how to proceed with the puzzle of pieces making a garment, etc. Subsequently, her machine paid for that, for my imagination knew no limits and I constantly invented things to make it sew. And when the Burda could not offer me a professional pattern that married my idea, I used to draw one myself. Sometimes, when it came to clothings, the result was hanging oddly here and there, but that didn’t prevent me to wear it proudly

Let’s focus now onto my first proposal – how to make a patchwork cushion, 40 by 40 cm. If you are unable to think of your own design, you can print the pattern for this house here:

Patchwork cushion – House

Make sure the scale of the pattern printed matches the real size you need for the cushion. It must be proportional to the linen material for the front embroidery, i.e. enter within a square of 30 per 30 cm.

What you need:

- Fabric for the back of the cushion – 42 cm by 50 cm
- Fabric for the front of the cushion – 42 by 42 cm
- Light gray linen fabric for the embroidery (or other light colored fabric) – 30 by 30 cm
- 3 buttons or 3 cm scratch
- Several small buttons for the flowers
- 120 cm of lace, no more than 12 mm wide
- A bouquet of fabric cuttings
- Felt in various colors.
- Thread in the range of colors of your fabrics.

Step 1:

Cut a square of 30 by 30 cm from the light gray linen. Meticulously follow the thread of the fabric, do not cut diagonally as your “image” will twist someday. Sew all sides of the fabric with a classical zigzag stitch to prevent edges to go undone.

Step 2:

Take the pattern printed and a piece of white baking paper. Put the latter on the drawing and hand copy all the elements, drawing each item separately. Where an item is under another, reproduce its integral shape, drawing the part that will not be seen (just a few mm more or entirely).

Step 3:

Cut all duplicate items on the baking paper and take out all your fabric cuttings. Choose the ones that suit you and use the small patterns to cut out the elements from the fabrics.

Step 4:

Arrange all the elements on the linen material. Center the pattern. It’s now the moment, when you can switch one fabric that does not please you with another.

Step 5:

Fix the basic elements with pins. Remove the others from the scene without mixing them. In the case of the house, you can only leave the base of the building and the under cloud.

Step 6:

Set your sewing machine to the embroidery stitch. In fact, it is the simple zigzag, but with tightened parameters. I set the zigzag width to 2, and the zigzag spacing to 0.4. Try on a fabric cutting your stitch in order to find the right settings. The stitch should look like this:

Step 7:

That is sewing the elements on the fabric. It is not necessary to sew the parts of the element that are under another. Avoid accumulating too many stitches and wasting thread. First, sew the foundation of the house, then the roofs, windows, sills. Finish the windows with some horizontal and vertical stitches.

Step 8:

You can complete the scene with flowers and clouds.

Step 9:

You can sew small button on the flowers.

Step 10:

Take the fabric 42 by 42 cm for the front of the cushion. Zigzag all the edges. Then iron it, as well as the scene (the latter, from the back side).

Step 11:

Center the scene on the fabric. Pin it and sew both parts together with a straight stitch.

Step 12:

Attach lace with one or two parallel lines of stitching between the two tissues.

Step 13:

Take the fabric for the back of the cushion. Draw the scheme below (on the reverse side of the fabric) with a French chalk.

Make sure you determine correctly the direction of the fabric pattern. The arrow indicates the direction. The 40 cm represent the width of the cushion.

Step 14:

Cut out the drawn pattern, leaving 1 cm margin on each side. Cut the straight line between the two times 4 cm as well. Zigzag all the edges of the fabric.

Step 15:

Iron both parts of the back. Then fold each on the dotted line and iron again. Fold again on the 4 centimeters line. Iron again. You should get two parts: one making 32 cm by 40 cm and another 40 cm by 10 cm.

Step 16:

Fix the folded parts with pins, and then sew them with a straight stitch.

Step 17:

Place the parts of the back as they were before separating them, overlapping the sewn edges (the pattern on the fabric must be in the same direction). The shorter part overlaps the longer one. Adjust so that the total distance makes 40 cm. In the end, you need to make a square of 40 cm by 40 cm. Fix with a short stitch.

Step 18:

Finish the back of the cushion by sewing 3 buttons with  3 buttonholes or 3 pieces of scratch.

Step 19:

Place the back of the cushion facing you. Put on the front part of the cushion, with its back to you. Make sure the cushion’s front and back are placed in the same direction (speaking of patterns). Both outer parts of the cushion should be facing one another in this moment.

Step 20:

Fix with pins all sides of the cushion, following the chalk line. Sew with straight stitch.

Step 21:

Unbutton the patchwork cushion case, turn inside out and carefully iron the edges. Use with love!