Make the Most of Every Scrap - Helen Brookham

There is nothing like a new cushion for the spring, Helen has come up with novel ways to use up small bits and make delightful cushions with small squares or strips, you might want to cut some squares to prepare prior to the class, this is an excellent way to fine tune your cutting and fast piecing.

To make either a square cushion or a rectangular Log Cabin cushion, this workshop shows a fantastic way to create a unique cushion using up your scraps. Using possibly linen borders or plain fabrics, sort your scraps into lights and darks or pale blue and dark blue and then you can precut at least 250 squares or  50 strips, these need to be cut as accurately as possible to make the sewing together easier, you will also need a ¼” foot for your machine for accurate piecing.  You can press 3 or 4 fabrics on top of each other and  multi cut together, but please just be careful to be straight on the grain, If you haven’t done this before we can demonstrate on the day.

Students requirements

• For the SQUARE CUSHION  cut  approx 125 light squares and 125 dark squares 1 ¼” CUT
• You will also need 25 2” squares to fill in the edge and 1 x 2.5” square
• For the LOG CABIN  cushion cut 25 light and 25 dark strips CUT 1” across the width of your fabric, some may be longer than others.
•  Basic sewing kit including fine flower head pins if you have them
• Rotary cutting equipment if you have available
• Matching threads for piecing and possibly perle for quilting
• .50cms Wadding and calico for the cushion back
• 16 or 18” cushion pad and 2m of matching ric rac  (available in shop at Cowslip)
• Sewing machine  in good working order and instructions and ¼” foot