The lovely Hannah and Rosie, over at The New Craft Society, told me about the Hillarys craft competition and I decided to take the challenge! Hillarys sent me a 100 x 100cm piece of their fabric and I had to make an original craft design and I could use any other craft materials necessary. Now, it just so happens that the competition coincides with Mothers’ Day so I decided to make something special for my mum because mums always prefer homemade gifts, don’t they? So I designed an embroidered bolster cushion…
I knew I wanted to try embroidery for the first time and the fabric has beautiful peacocks on it so the first thing I did was try out some basic embroidery stitches to emphasise the peacocks.
I decided to make a bolster cushion as I know my mum needs new cushions for her bed. The added bonus of this particular cushion is that you can use it to store your winter or summer duvet – so no under bed or on top of cupboard storage needed. I cut the 100 x 100cm piece into two equal sized pieces of 50 x 50cm. This wasn’t quite enough to make a kingsize duvet bolster cushion so I added a 12cm fabric panel in the middle and at the ends.
Once I had sewn the five panels together I made a channel at either end of the bolster for the ribbon to be fed through.
Pop a safety pin on the end of the ribbon to help feed it through the channel. Each piece of ribbon will need to be about 60cm long. I chose this lovely purple velvet to pick out the purple flourishes in the birds’ tails.
Feed the ribbon through. It’s good to have a lighter weight fabric at the ends as this draws closed more easily.
Fold your kingsize duvet in half, half again and then half again and stuff into the bolster (good to have someone to help push it in from one end and pull it from the other!)
Once the duvet is in you can tie up your ribbons.
I hope my mum likes it – both practical and beautiful!
I am definitely going to make another one of these for myself; I have two duvets on top of my wardrobe that take up so much space and this is such a comfy addition to the bed as it’s all lovely and squidgy – perfect for reading in bed.
Thank you very much to Hillarys for the fabric (and the challenge) and fingers crossed for the competition!!
Katy x
Wowee that’s so pretty – I wish Emilia was old enough to make me such a lovely present!!…..Mummy Orme will love it!!
Good luck for the competition xx
Thank you, Betty! I think you’re going to have to wait a while until Emilia is ready to learn to sew but I’m sure you’ll be given pasta shell drawings in no time!! 😉 xx
it’s gorgeous!!!!
I want one …xxx
Ah, thanks Sophs! SO easy to make and the best storage idea ever! x
Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous 🙂
Thank you, Claire!
I need to make myself one of these right now!
Me too, Maeve!
That is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen!
X
A house warming pressie for you perhaps, Agnes? X
Great idea….clever girl….good luck for the competition.
Thank you, Penny! Fingers crossed!!! Xx
A gorgeous make and especially loving the embroidery. Great idea to use it as storage too!
Thank you, Claire. My embroidery skills definitely need a lot more practise though 🙂 x