Candy Stripe Cushion

Both of my boys have been poorly with a particularly nasty sickness bug over the last week and so any sewing has had to fall into the 'relaxing and not requiring too much brain-power ' category. For that reason I opted for something I've done before and piece half-square triangles to make a festive candy stripe design, the same design used for the background to the advent calendar I made a couple of months back.

This time it's destined to become a Christmassy cushion cover to fit a large square cushion that lives on our sofa.
I used the Half-Square Triangles, 4 1/2in Finished Square die and my Big Shot to cut all of the red and white triangles. It was soothingly repetitive cutting them all out and then sewing them together - and much easier than convincing either of my sons to have some "disgusting" medicine.

Once I had pieced a block to the size needed for the cushion I gave it a final press and set to quilting it. I've seen a few quilts quilted with a spiral working out from the centre recently and loved the effect and so was inspired to try something similar. Whilst this is a Christmas cushion I thought using a star as the central shape and then continuing out and winding around it might look good. I made an 8 pointed star template by cutting out two squares with 2in sides and sticking one on top of the other at 45 degrees to the one below. Then with a water erasable pen I drew around the star in the centre of the cushion front and using those lines as a guide, also drew a smaller star inside it.

I quilted around the smaller star, beginning at a point and then when back at the start-point carried the stitch-line out to the larger star and wound out from there, using the previous stitch lines as a guide to form each new layer of the star-shaped spiral. The seams of the half-square triangles helped to keep the quilting in line and not skew off course.

I had no concept when I began quilting it quite how long it would take to complete as I don't normally quilt so densely but it was, as before, soothingly repetitive and easy enough once in the swing of it.

It might not be finished by Christmas Day but it will be nice to sit down and bind the edges in front of a film over the festive break.

Have a very Happy Christmas!