My Cushion

For my options last year I decided to take textiles and I am half the way through the first year of my two year course. I know that many people find that at their or their children's school the textile classes are not very good, however, since this is a GCSE class and everybody is interested in the subject the lessons are fantastic!

Before Christmas we were working on a Decorative Components project, learning about different methods of decorating products and making a small 15 by 15 cm square of each type of decoration based on any theme that we wanted. This was then sewn together to make a cushion, with two back pieces joined with either a zip or buttons and button holes.

 I decided to base mine on nature and the decorations that we learnt were; applique, hand and machine stitching, fabric painting - both printing and stencilling - padding, truponto quilting, quilting, reverse applique and tye-dye.

 I saved my tye-dye for the back and made a big piece rather than a small one.

Overall, I am very pleased with the result and I am loving the course! We are now re-inventing a product - I have a canvas bag and I have been hand sewing and appliqueing a bird on a cherry tree onto it. We start our real controlled assessment after Easter.