Anyhoo, so one of these lovely little projects I have done recently have been a couple of granny square cushions. I have always shied away from cushion covers - where the heck do you get cushion pads from? How do you know which size to get? How do you account for the going-out-yness as well as the uppy-downiness? Aaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!! Also, having always been the lucky owner of comfy settees I really don't understand the point: sitting on a hardback wooden chair? Yes cushion appropriate! Short of pillows in an al fresco sleeping situation? Use a cushion! Falling off a cliff with pointy rocks at the bottom? Strap cushions all around yourself! but sitting on a thickly padded seat pre-moulded into the shape of your bum? NO! NO NO NO NO!!! All you are doing is making the seat more uncomfortable! And if you have excess cushions in a social situation you have to decide to sit with that weird middle back poked out posture or awkward sitting-with-cushion-on-your-lap thing. Anyway, I am now have the dubious pleasure of owning two slightly sub-optimally comfortable settees with no bum moulding whatsoever and suddenly I get it! And I also thought that after 8 years of crocheting (gosh that makes me feel old, as I was at uni when I started. Eeep!) I should really get over myself and face my crochetting demons.
Laying out all my DK colours to see what I had - apparently I love orange a bit too much. Something about being a bit ginger maybe? Hm.
So, I had two special occasion presents to make: a wedding present and a 30th birthday present and being a relatively new mummy (baby five months old this month! naaaaaw she's getting sooo big!) large projects on limited time are a bit of a recipe for definitely definitely not getting them done in time (rather than probably not getting them done in time) so I thought AHA! Time to face my nemesis! I am going to make not one but TWO cushion covers! Take that cushions! So for the first one I decided to do a fairly conservative and pleasing granny square pattern with two coloured rounds with the third round in cream and joining them all together using the join as you go method. I used 25 in total which seemed to fit the 41cm X 41cm (16"X 16") cushion pad I had found in a craft supermarket type place (look easy enough to make though, might try that next time)
Laying out the colours to find a pleasing pattern - surprisingly difficult, as you don't want two similar colours too close together (say the light and dark yellow) on the inside or out. Took me a little while of obsessive looking fiddling to get a pattern I was happy with!
I wanted to make a removable cover as I am a massive dolt who got non-washable cushions, so I thought I'd do a button opening by making two rectangles of single crochet. I did this for the first one and it took aaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggggggeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssss and looked tasteful but pretty plain so for the second I did nice colourful granny stripes with alternating cream stripes. Less tasteful but I think I much prefer it. I have never pretended to be full of taste :) You can see the finished front panel and one of the back stripes resting on the blanket of dooooooom.
Doing some sneaky crochet in the car (sleeping baby!)
So finished off by crocheting front and back together with back bits overlapping to allow buttons to be sewed behind buttonholes, weaving in ends (WORST. JOB. EVER.) and sewing on the dotty red buttons. Such a good little project! Soooo ready to see the first one? Here it is!!!......
One cushion cover made! yaay!
The tasteful back without buttons - for some reason took pictures of it before it was finished. <facepalm>
The second one is pretty similar on the front although I went round the whole of the front with a round of single crochet...I don't know if you can see but the front is pretty tight and all the granny square holes were stretched open a bit. I think this extra room plus a slightly bigger back panel helped the second one to be a better fit to the cushion pad. Aaaaannnnnddddd....
Heeerrre's the second one!
See a bit less stretched! And definitely at home on my slightly sub optimal sofa. May have to make myself my husband a couple of these.
What do you think of this different back? I think it's a bit more interesting than the first one...
I really love granny stitch. I'm not sure what it is about it, but I love it. I think maybe it's a bit comforting, easy to do and with a bit of clever colour combination can look really pretty. I found a whole crochet book on granny stitch in my local library, it was totally brilliant (I think it might have even prompted this latest foray into granny stitching). It even had granny gloves!
So now I've finished these two I have a couple of baby things to make before going back to the dreaded Project of Dooooom. Will keep you posted on progress!
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