What we do for our loved ones….

Gobs and gobs actually. And when dd came home for the summer and asked if I would make some large floor cushions for her new apartment…my heart went absolutely wild. LOL…mind you this is the same girl who would not allow me to embroider anything for her. Think I might have overdone her stuff as well as all her friends when I first started off in embroidery… oh well.

So, the plan was to create three large 20″ square or larger cushions with a body pillow all embroidered with something in rust and gold. The fabric she chose was black faux suede. Having returned from the AEC I had oodles of ideas but one in particular. If anyone has not as yet seen MiaKay’s Jacobean collections I would strongly recommend you do so. Not only are they vibrant but excellent for creating large embroideries. The website btw is: http://www.miakaydesigns.com

Having seen the absolutely beautiful Jacobean Bellpull designs done on a Dupioni silk shawl I was determined to use the designs on the cushions. So the next day was spent in merging designs together to create blueprints of what I was going to embroider. The client…dd ofcourse was the boss and finally agreed upon five different blueprints. With the blueprints in hand, now came the time to actually plan how I was going to stitch out these large masterpieces. Each cushion was approximately 25″ square except for the patchwork one which was 22″ square and the body pillow measuring approximately 50″ long.

Cushion #1:The very first one I embroidered had the same motif from the Jacobean Bellpull designs stitched out eight times. My original plan was to have one of the other designs from the same collection in each of the corners but dd thought it was becoming too cluttered, she wanted a bit of the Asian look to it so I pulled off a border design from the Izmir collection which stitches fast and also surprisingly blended excellent with the motifs. The stitching took a whole day and five bobbins later I had a gorgeous cushion cover.I was rather proud of my workmanship. Only a bit of a problem happened…wouldn’t you know it. But as it happened in placement of one of the motifs in the corner and was off by an 1/8″ I decided not to worry too much. Dd was by this time rather excited herself and started looking at the other blueprints. I was exhausted but very happy….

Cushion #2:

Telling myself not to rush I started on the second one. I had been working on creating a new collection and dd’s eyes fell upon one of the designs which I was testing at the moment. “Oh Mom…this would be perfect”….Well but it is an applique design and not sure that I want to do applique using faux suede. Never mind my good friend Carolyn tells me that she does it all the time, I was just not sure. Lo and behold, in my stash I found the perfect peach mottled fabric and it was cotton! Blending fabrics is not a bad thing to do, actually I do it all the time so why not. We could carry the same border motif in the center and around the edge. Again the cushion cover took me a full day but I was in 7th heaven. Dd was actually pretty happy with the results herself and I was silently pinching myself to make sure that this was really happening.

Cushion #3:

By now I was feeling pretty good and had quite a sweatshop atmosphere going. Dd was popping in my sewing room time and again to see the progress and kept asking questions and giving ideas… oh wow, wow, wow…LOL.

 Well, cushion #3 was not a problem, as it was a patchwork cushion completely made with dupioni silk scraps…and I do have quite a bunch. Originally dd  had wanted me to use gold metallics to embroider all the fancy stitching etc…but it really did not blend well with the other two. It needed black. At first she didn’t like it but when I made a couple of blocks and put them together, well…she saw where I was going. So cushion #3 was created. This was the smallest of the three, other two being 25″ square. This one came to about 22″ square. I did decide that I will make myself one after seeing this one finished…one day.

Body Pillow:

The last one was ready to be set on the machine. I decided against faux suede here and went with a 100% cotton black on black printed fabric. For one thing, it would be easier to handle (50 inches is quite a load). The pattern we chose was to use the same border design from Izmir with some of the bell pull designs ( I was dying to do the birds in the center). But dd had a change of heart…she didn’t want the birds, wanted florals and when she saw the applique orchid from the not released  yet “Shaded flowers” she wanted it. So, two hoopings on the SWF (20″ long) created the center floral border. Then four more hoopings again on the SWF border hoop created the outer border.

After a week of doing nothing but planning these wonderful cushions and embroidering them I was totally exhausted but very pleased and ofcourse dd was extremely happy which made it even better for me. Then came the part where she wanted me to create some bags for her. Now I’m not the world’s best bag maker (that is my friend Carolyn’s job… http://www.creativeneedlecraft.com) who creates absolutely the most beautiful accessories and hand bags but dd’s wish was important so I created from her drafting two bags. No I do not know what they are called except that they sort of wrap around you so I ended up making two.

Dd’s embroideries are done and I’m so very very pleased that finally she asked me to embroider something for her. Made my week. Ofcourse I did get carried away and suggested that I will bring my sewing machine and embroidery machine when I come see her to create her curtains etc….No, that didn’t work. Oh well, at least I made somethings. What I wouldn’t do for my loved ones…..