Sewing presents

Last week I made a cushion for my Mum, for her birthday which was yesterday. I loved making this. I knew I wanted to do something with this lace and linen doily I bought when I was with Mum at a vide grenier in France.

Once I had washed and pressed it, the doily looked so sunny and appealing that I abandoned my vague plans to embellish it and instead I used it as a sun on the front of the cushion cover. I made some yo-yos for flowers and did my embroidery around those instead.

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I am so pleased with how the cushion turned out. It became one of those lovely sewing projects that ends up EXACTLY as you planned it. The cushion back is made using the very simple envelope method that Ruth Singer describes in Sew It Up.
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I also made both Ma and me a needle case for our dpns. I was inspired by this Cath Kidston knitting needle roll that I was given for Christmas. I love the Cath Kidston roll for my full size needles, but the slim dpns get lost in it. So I worked out the size of needle roll I needed for my dpns and set about making one, and then a second one.

This is how they ended up. I'm pretty pleased with them!

I topstitched the pocket panel onto the backing panel, but I think next time I would try to sew all the layers together inside out and then turn it. My machine is getting old though, and is not great at going through multiple layers.

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And now I'm turning my attention back to knitting for a few weeks as I try to get a little present finished for a new nephew who is due to be born at the end of September.