I just finished making this cushion/pillow as part of an Instagram based sew along. As soon as I saw the forest fungi quilt pattern, I fell in love with it, so just had to part part. I saw a beautiful mock up and decided to base my fabric pull around that. It was a great time saver when choosing the fabrics and also gave me a great opportunity to try out a darker background colour as a change.
Unfortunately I got sick while I was making this, so it took longer to come together than I originally thoughts. I also didn’t feel up to doing much sewing and the quilting was the main thing I couldn’t face doing. My sister had encouraged me to give organic curve quilting a try and although I was reluctant at first, the thought of making out straight lines for quilting really didn’t suit my energy levels. So I went for it and I’m so glad I did! It might not be perfect but it was quite relaxing to do after the first few lines.
I have been desperate to try flannel as a quilt or cushion back, when I saw this art gallery fabrics flannel it seemed like the perfect print for this pattern. I actually started with this fabric when I was choosing my fabric pull, which made a change too. I had seen a few people quilting their cushion/pillow backs and thought I’d give that a try too. I must admit although it feels quite nice, I’m not sure how necessary it is and think I preferred the feel of the flannel before I quilted it on this occasion. I definitely want to try quilting a cotton back and using the flannel without quilting, to properly compare and see if it changes my opinion. One tip I would definitely recommend, from the experience of not doing it, do a zigzag stitch on the edge of the pillow before adding binding if you are finishing your pillow that way. I felt like my binding was slightly more difficult and didn’t sit at neat with the 2 layers of batting, I think the extra bit of stitching would have made it much better and will definitely take the time to do it in future.
Although I did a tiny bit of tweaking to accommodate the batting to be included in the top half of the cushion/pillow back (I didn’t add it to the small bottom section), I still used my tried and tested hidden zip back method. You can find the tutorial
here, if you’d also like a handy binding tutorial I have one
here too.
I always like to include the names of fabrics I use on my blog, although a couple of bits was scraps, I have done my best to include the names I could find:
Art gallery fabrics Fleuron haven flannel.
Colour flow by stoffabrics (mustard coloured binding)
Andover giucy giuce (dark green speckle background)
Dear Stella wee gallery hearts (in a red colour-big mushroom)
Figs elements by ghazal razavi (blush/dusky pink colour-big mushroom)
Andover maid of honour (pink spot-little mushroom)
Moda Lady bird by crystal manning (yellow-little mushroom)
Art gallery fabrics soften the volume (low volume-stipe/stem of mushrooms)
The first fungi quilt pattern is by pen and paper patterns
Thread used is Aurifil 50 wt thread in shade 2415 for quilting and 2021 for patchwork.
I love my new cushion/pillow and have the a plan for the perfect place to put it.
Mx
