Beauty is You cushion

Here's a little comfort stitching project I have been working on recently. 

You will probably remember how excited I was by Cori Dantini's Beauty Is You fabric line. I was desperate to do something with it, so taking one of our FQ bundles I embarked on a little EPP.

I've recently started teaching my classes again, and one of the first was a half day in English Paper Piecing. I've taught this before with hexagons, but after seeing the beautiful work that Tasha and Brioni were doing at the FQ retreat I decided to make something a little more intricate to inspire my students.

And looking through my retreat copy of Fat Quaterly I found Brioni's EPP placemat pattern along with templates that I could just print out! A whole sheet full of them! So much easier than drawing around one and cutting out a hundred times (I am so old-school).

But I really wanted a pattern that was a bit more continuous, and then I came across Katy's gorgeous Spring Carnival cushion and realised I could make this using the same FQ templates by omitting the diamond. I printed the templates on to some thin card and off I went!

This was such a lovely, enjoyable project and the fabric works so well. I have never made ANYTHING using one fabric line before! But I think this is such an original collection that it deserves to be seen together as the artist intended.

I loved fussy cutting the ladies and flowers for the hexagons too

And then, of course, I had to hand quilt it. I can never bring myself to machine quilt anything that has been hand pieced - it just seems wrong!

So I got my perle 8's out and used them to accentuate the circles that the pattern had made. With smaller stitches I picked out the pretty ladies and flowers.

I have recently taken a huge plunge and finally upgraded my poor old basic Brother sewing machine for a Pfaff Quilt Expression 4.
OMG, what a difference!! I totally LOVE it, and that's before I have even tried the machine quilting/FMQ!

But I did tackle piping and button holes to gives this cushion a few extra touches. That's Kaufman Essex Linen in natural on the back (as recommended by VeryKerryBerry!). I have this in stock now (in the Edinburgh shop, but coming to the website soon) with unbleached and grey arriving very soon.