Colwill - Pillows & Quilts

Animals, the countryside and country life have inspired me since I was a young girl and provided endless ideas for sewing. This book offers some of those ideas in a collection of lovely cushions and quilts to enhance your home or to make as gifts for family and friends.

Inspiration is all around me on the farm where I live and work, including the glorious Cornish countryside, the day-to-day farming tasks and also my dogs and horses. I love the flowers in spring and enjoy capturing the lovely vibrant colours of buttercups with swallows flying low over them. Each season brings with it unique colours, skies and textures just waiting to be captured in fabric and thread.

When I married I changed from dressmaking to home-making and made my first quilt over thirty-five years ago. This led me into working in interior design, where I learned about colour and how it can affect your mood. My passion for colour, texture and fabrics, both new and old, grew from making home items into quilts and using every bit of spare fabric to make a comfortable home.

Patchwork and quilting, and especially the materials and techniques, have moved on since I began quilting. Today it is easier than ever to learn the basic techniques and then take them in your own direction, and I hope the projects here encourage you to do that. We all see fabrics and colours in different ways, which is one of the reasons why patchwork is so exciting and addictive.

In this book I describe my unique way of creating cushions and quilts. You can make the projects just as they are or modify the ideas to create your own individual style. Whether using vintage fabrics or brand new, you can escape into a wonderful world of fabric and stitches. I have designs stacked up in my head like planes waiting to land at an airport and always have a little project by my side ready for the odd five minutes of sewing.

For most of the projects, patchwork is combined with appliqu and hand embroidery and the sewing techniques are clearly described to help you achieve beautiful results. You can use needle-turn appliqu (my favourite) or fusible web, which is usually faster. Each project lists the materials needed, followed by step-by-step instructions with diagrams and photographs to help you make the project. The templates needed can be found at are included.

Recording your life story in stitches is good for the soul and so relaxing as you become engrossed in a project. Dont worry if your stitching isnt flawless practice makes perfect! So, have fun using the ideas in this book and like me, let one quilt or cushion lead to another, and another...

This cushion is great fun and really easy to make. It can be constructed from small squares using left-over bits of your favourite fabrics. You can even use labels from childrens clothes, which will make treasured memories. Once you get the idea you can change the sizes of the squares to make a larger cushion, and then add borders in the same sequence.

The use of linen fabric creates a lovely country feel, with the easy quilting worked with a thick perle thread to create a bolder stitch. Small mother-of-pearl buttons add a decorative touch in the centre of some of the squares but you could use buttons rescued from old garments. Buttons are used again as a decorative fastening for the cushion.

Mixed fabrics, twenty-five 212in (6.3cm) squares

Linen or plain cotton for borders and backing, 30in (75cm) (width of fabric)

Patterned fabric for lining/binding, 612in (16.5cm) (width of fabric)

Calico for lining, 22in (56cm) square

Cotton wadding (batting), 22in (56cm) square

Perle no.8 thread in ecru, for quilting

Blending thread for piecing and a strong thread for sewing on buttons

Mother-of-pearl buttons: five or six small ones for decorating the front and five large and five small for the cushion fastening

Cushion pad, 18in (45.7cm) square (will be rolled in half)

Finished size: 19in x 13in (48.3cm x 33cm)

Tip

Instead of buying a square cushion pad and rolling it in half, you could use an oblong pad 18in x 12in (45.7cm x 30.5cm), if you can find one.

Preparing Fabrics

1 Cut twenty-five 212in (6.3cm) squares from your mixed fabrics. You could be very organized and cut five squares from five different fabrics or cut random squares as you go. Lay them out on your cutting board and shuffle them around until you feel happy with the design.

2 Cut one piece of linen 4in x 1012in (10.2cm x 26.7cm) for the left-hand border of the cushion. Cut one piece of linen 6in x 1012in (15.2cm x 26.7cm) for the right-hand border. Cut two pieces of linen each 2in x 1912in (5cm x 49.5cm) for the top and bottom borders.

3 Cut one piece of linen for the back of the cushion 1312in x 1912in (34.3cm x 49.5cm).

Making Up

1 Using a thread to blend with your fabric and 14in (6mm) seams, sew the squares into rows as shown in . Press the seams in the directions indicated in the diagram. This means that the pieced rows will lock together and make the seams easy to match up when the rows are sewn together. Now sew the rows together and press the work.

Fig 1 Sew the squares into rows, pressing seams in alternate directions and then sew the rows together

2 Sew the 4in x 1012in (10.2cm x 26.7cm) linen to the left side of the pieced squares, and the 6in x 1012in (15.2cm x 26.7cm) piece to the right side, pressing the seams towards the squares. Now sew each 2in x 1912in (5cm x 49.5cm) piece of linen to the top and bottom and press towards the squares ().

Fig 2 Adding the borders

3 Layer the square of calico, wadding (batting) and patchwork to make a quilt sandwich (see ). Sew on small buttons to finish decorating the cushion front.

4 Take the piece of linen backing fabric and sew it to the cushion front along the top (). Take the patterned fabric for the lining/binding and iron in 14in (6mm) along the long edge. Fold over again and sew down to neaten the edge. Now place it face down on the right side of the cushion front and back and sew together with a 12in (1.3cm) seam (a larger seam than usual).