Applique, patterned circular cushion

A few years ago I realised that the doodles I had been drawing in lectures while at university and in various office meetings all had a tendancy to be circular patterns that repeated out from a centre point. I don't know what this means from a psychological point of view, but when it came to thinking up an idea for a cushion cover design for a friend's birthday present, I had a whole wealth of mini designs to draw on (yes, I kept some doodles on scraps of paper - I don't know why).

 

I began by sketching out a circular pattern on paper to see how well the shapes would fit together keeping them as simple, but as striking, as possible. Next, I drew and cut out some sturdier cardboard templates of the three main shapes that would make up the repeating pattern and used them to cut out several of each shape in different coloured fabrics.

 

I pinned the shapes onto a piece of plain cotton to form the main cover. With a rough idea of the size of the pattern, I bought a round cushion pad, and then cut round the shapes on the fabric to the size of the cushion and cut one other piece the same size for the back of the cover, leaving about 2 inches round each edge for the hem. (Unfortunately, it turned out that the cover needed to be smaller than I'd originally anticipated in order to make the cushion inside fit in a nice, padded way, so I had to remove the outer two rings of shapes...)

Using blanket stitch, I sewed each shape in place onto the fabric by hand. Then I pinned the front and back parts of the cover together face to face and sewed them together with the sewing machine, leaving a gap of about 20cm to fit the cushion into when it was turned the right way out.

Finally, I squeezed the cushion pad into the cover and sewed up the remaining gap by hand.

And there you have one slightly wonky, circular, patterned cushion!