Marimekko cushion

For some time now I have had some lovely Marimekko fabric waiting to be turned into a cushion cover for my Ercol chair. I bought 2 of these chairs off ebay and they were a bargain at £25 each, they match my beloved daybed. There are pics of the daybed here...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10199042@N06/sets/72157606421506430/

Confusingly I have 2 Flickr accounts, but unfortunately you are not able to merge them.



Anyway, back to the cushion, its taken me a fair while to complete, so much pinning, sewing, pinning, more sewing. In the end its not as perfect as I would like, but it will do. I think it may have been better with a small print, but it is lovely fabric.



My daughter said it looked good while I was despairing of its wonkiness so that is good enough for me!

Aprons from Paris

I have this beautiful Japanese Apron book called something along the lines of 'Aprons from Paris' - my french is only slightly different from my non-existant understanding of Japanese.

I mostly bought this book as it's completely beautiful as all Japanese craft books seem to be. Such lovely photographs, and of course aprons. I did manage to make one despite all the instructions being in Japanese and was quite pleased with the way it turned out. It was my first experience of pleats and embroidery. Also sewing with linen which turns out to be quite tricky.




The pattern has a scottie dog but I replaced it with a butterfly. The embroidery was great fun, and I would love to do some more. As you can see from the pics its a big grubby, I wear it with pride. In hindsight I should have roped in one of the kids to model it, the cat wasn't so willing!




I think Japanese sewing books may become an obsession of mine, even if I don't get round to making anything from them, they are a lovely way to pass 5 minutes with a cup of tea!