Stitch This

As promised here are some more shots of my goldfish bowl cushion. Its going to live in brixham but is nestling on the living room sofa for now. The fish like the view and have settled in nicely. Do you want to have one in your house? Fish are so relaxing….

Here’s how I made it although I’m sure you’ll customise as you wish. I’d love to see pictures of any finished cushions of course. We could have a whole aquarium of the little blighters.

I started off crocheting a flat circle out of Colinette 5.1 (I think that’s it’s name, it’s 100% wool, space dyed and quite an effort to crochet with given its varying thickness but definitely worth it). I didn’t use a pattern but have in the past been well served by the flat circle pattern at Attic 24. The last round had no increases on it, just double crochet stitches (triple for those in the US) all round. That made the edge nice and tight.

Then I needle felted the fish, seaweed, sand and starfish using a combination of wool roving and felts. I did a bit of embroidery to enhance and might well do some more one day. I used vintage metal buttons to make the bubbles. Remember to sew on very well if small children are likely to be cuddling this cushion.

Then I stitched on the back (felt) using a running stitch, stuffing a cushion pad in before stitching the opening shut. I figure I can always redo the stitching if I have to get the pad out for washing in the future.

And that was it! This was a very free form project. I didn’t even know what I was going to make until I finished the circle and suddenly thought of goldfish bowls. Really good fun to make too. I’m thinking of putting a pirates treasure chest in there too…I hope you enjoy making one too 🙂