Cover Me

(Ha, yes, apparently still not over the Springsteen thing...).

Anyway, I have had this old jumper knocking about for a few years now, I bought it in a charity shop  for about £3.00, probably with the idea of un-ravelling it and using the yarn for something. However, as so often with manufactured knitwear, it was cut out of yards of knit cloth rather than being knitted as a piece, so the unravelling - it just doesn't work.

Charity shop jumper basking in the autumn sun, with little idea of what lies ahead...

I decided it was good cushion cover fodder, with a bit of wrangling.  I also needed to make a quick thing as a respite from the Northmavine Hoody (however lovely big projects are, it's nice to have a break and do something you can finish in an hour!).

I didn't like the 'worms' much, nor the Roman-numeralesque thing on the border, however it's a a lovely soft knit - I think in some kind of angora mix yarn (the label is gone). I removed the worms, but they left their imprint on the main fabric:

ghost-worms

So I chucked the thing into the washer at 60degrees and gave it a bit of a felting. Even though I have now steeked I am still not that blase about cutting up knitting, even £3 charity shop knitting, in it's raw state. The felting kept it together nicely, and also of course made the fabric firmer and easier to machine sew. I did totally fail to 'dry flat' so it gained a slightly drunken border (as you will see later, I did it on purpose of course....).

I bought a couple of cushions in the sale in one of those bargain shops a bit ago - it's usually cheaper than going out and buying cushion pads (crazy eh?).  I used one for the Sashiko Cushion a while ago, the other had been hanging about annoyingly in its vile polyester cover. The vile cover did come in useful though:

It also means it'll be the right size for the cushion pad.

This is my usual cushion cover pattern, the front is in one piece...

Note the on-purpose slopey blue block....

...the back in two with an overlap - I used the ribbed edging for one of the edge which will show, the other I had to hem:

The most nail biting bit. Though if I'm honest there wasn't much nail biting in this one really

Then I sewed the whole thing together (I tell you, once I learnt to pin like this, life got massively easier machine sewing wise!):

Then you can just sew (carefully) along them you see...dead easy!

I did leave a gigantic seam allowance to deal with any unravelling-despite-felting while this thing was in progress. But of course you can't leave the gigantic seam allowance there because you'll have a bumpy edged cushion (not a good look). I zigzagged round and trimmed it down to avoid that problem:

Finished item. I am not sure if it's an abstract tree or sunset or what, but it's certainly cosy, cost about £5 altogether and took about an hour to make, all in:

Front

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