Okay, I’m not done all my Christmas pressies yet, but I have finally battled the pintucks from hell into submission, and that alone was worth shouting from the rooftops!

These are the cushions for my gran’s Christmas.  I intended, initially, to make 2 each of 2 different styles, using the tutorials here and here, but having started the first set, it became obvious I wouldn’t have time for set 2.  (Please note that on my pin of the first tutorial I wrote ‘Fab, easy, fancy looking cushion cover’)

The problem with the one I did go with is that although the technique was easy enough, it took *forever* to actually do!  The other issue was that it was impossible to tell from the original tutorial what sort of fabric dimensions one would need.  To save others from similar pain, here’s a few notes I made:

  • You can’t do this project without an overlocker/serger (which wasn’t a problem for me, as I have Big Brother’s Little Brother)
  • Although the idea of pintucks made with the overlocker sounds easier than the ‘official’ way (which I have never attempted) you still need to mark out every line prior to starting, and you can only actually pin them one at a time
  • I got my time down to about 6-7 minutes to pin and sew one row on the overlocker. 
  • There’s a lot of rows @ 1 every inch
  • The ruffling bit is much quicker, that only took me about an hour
  • A piece of fabric that starts off 24″ x 60″ will shrink down to about 22″ x 22″
  • This will be a challenge if you’re trying to get two 20″ cushions out of it…
  • But not if you employ the maths part of your joint honours degree and cut it into four 11″ x 11″ and then kill two birds with one stone over those remaining 2 cushions you couldn’t work out how you were going to find time to do… (although that will only work if you bought a ridiculous amount of fabric to start with to make up the difference to 20″)
  • This project uses A LOT of thread, and not just for the overlocked bits, making the ruffles and assembling the cushions takes up a fair whack too!
  • If you buy very friable material, you will need to French seam the entire cushion cover o.O

And so, here’s the pics:

First up the panel, after trimming (sorry, I should have taken a photo of the messy ‘before trimming’ bit)

Please admire the neat inside French seams:

And here’s the final cushions (I actually only have 2 cushion forms right now, don’t ask!)

Now to finish more than I really want to list here lol  Okay, well the aim is to complete the Super Secret Project by Wednesday night, so that Thursday can be filled with making little items for stocking stuffers, and a scarf for my mum, who got her main present in September.  I may yet have to take some of the SSP into work tomorrow and Tuesday for lunchtime to get a bit more done!

And on that note, I shall love you and leave you, catch you at the end of the next finish…