How To Do Scribble Sewing

A while back, I made a cushion as a birthday present for a friend.

It may seem a little random that I gave someone a skull cushion (Mr PSGC certainly wasnt a fan)......

.....but we had been shopping together earlier in the year and she had pointed out a rather spendy rams skull cushion.

I am too mean to buy that, so thought I would do my own spin.

Unfortunately I didnt take any photos as I was going through, but it was fairly easy, and probably doesnt need photos to explain.  Its not embroidery like your gran would do....but for me thats the charm..right?

Materials
1. Cushion pad
2. Length of fabric slightly wider than the pad, and long enough to go all the way around plus half a cushion with for overlap and seams.
3. Embroidery thread

Equipment
1. Sewing machine
2. Paper and pencil.


Do the scribble sewing before you assemble the cushion cover.  I drew a rough picture of a scull in pencil on some thin (tracing paper is ideal) paper, and attached this with a few pins to the front panel of my cushion.

I followed the outline of the skull and features with a straight stitch, essentially sewing the paper to the fabric.

Once I felt I had the rough features, and they were obvious on my fabric/paper sandwich, I removed the paper.  Carefully tear the paper away from the fabric, taking care not to pull the stitches.  You may have to pull some of the paper out with tweezers.  Its important to get all the scraps out now before you put more stitches in.

Now you have an outline to work with, you can go back over these lines with a combination of zig zag and straight lines to "colour in" until you are happy.

Obviously if skulls aren't your bag, you could use any shape (a letter for example)....I also think this style would look really good in rainbow or very bright colours....(and obviously you could do this on existing garments not just cushions).

In case you need help on how to make it in to a cushion cover........

There are lots of different ways of making a cushion cover, but I always us a very simple fold...no zips.

Cut the fabric so that you have 3 pieces - The first (The front) will be the same size as the cushion plus an allowance for seams - I leave approx 1cm all the way around. (i.e 2cm each on width and length).

The back has 2 pieces.  Both will be the width of the cushion plus the allowance for seams.  The length of these two pieces will depend upon where on the cushion you want your opening to be.  Assume its in the middle (and both pieces will be the same).  They should be half the width of the cushion plus 2cm for 2 seams plus say 10cm each for overlap to make the opening.

Sew all three pieces into a line, so you have 1 piece of fabric again.   Sew an edge seam on each end, then fold it back up, and sew the sides inside out.   Turn it back inside out and insert cushion pad.