Carcassonne Crochet Retreat

During the first week of October I was lucky enough to go away on holidays to France on my own for a week. I say on my own but actually I was with my bestest oldest friend (we have known each other for 49 years!!!) and a group of 12 others on a lovely relaxing crochet retreat. The retreat, which was organised by Stitchtopia and run by the wonderful Lucy of Attic24 fame, took place in the beautiful city of Carcassonne in southern France.

We set off very early (I got up at 2:30am - yikes!) on a Monday morning and got off to a great start with bucks fizz for breakfast at the airport...

We met everybody at the departure gate and before long we were touching down in Toulouse to beautiful sunny weather. An hour or so on the coach and we were afforded our first view of beautiful Carcassonne...

... and yes it really does look like that - just WoW - a beautiful, historic, medieval, walled city perched on a hill surrounded by rolling green fields. (Well on a few sides anyway, there is also a newer area of town but we'll come to that later.) 

Entering the city is by way of a huge gate which would have had a portcullis and drawbridge, as there is a dry moat ...

Once inside the city, which is made up of lots of little winding roads and alleyways made of cobblestones, its very peaceful and quiet as there is no traffic (hence no traffic noise), and of course everywhere is safe for pedestrians. Everywhere you look there are little restaurants and boutique shops, its just so quaint and pretty.

Our hotel was actually inside the walled city so it was very handy for all the restaurants, and lovely and peaceful at night. We stayed for 6 days - 4 days of crochet (yippee!!!) and 2 days sight-seeing (with a little crochet added in of course!). During our crochet days we had workshops run by the lovely Lucy, who taught us about colour theory, and then gave us a wonderful pattern to follow for a cushion cover. We were challenged to be bold and brave with our colour choices, and to step outside of our comfort zones. And how lucky were we - we were each given a pack of Scheepjes minis to work with (photo nicked from Lucy as I was to excited and forgot to take one !) ...

Ooooh my! Amazing! Such gorgeous colours and such cute little balls, just such fun for messing about with and playing with colour. The front side of the cushion was a little experimental with some blending first of all ...

 

... and this soon grew into nearly a competed front cover ....

... it was wonderful to see how everybody else's cushion covers were so different despite working from the same palette...

... we added some little flowers to the middle of the front, here is mine completed ...

... to be honest I'm not wildly happy with it, too much orange maybe ? But here is the reverse and Oh My GoSh I LoVe It ...

I feel with the front I let myself overthink it whereas with the reverse I just went with the flow a bit and as a result it feels much more balanced. Or maybe its just that I love brights so much! Nevertheless the workshops were such fun, lots of lively chatter and laughter, and soooo good to spend time with like-minded people, and during down time we could relax in the sweet little hotel garden ...

We had a couple of days of sightseeing, and the old town of Carcassonne is so beautiful - I took a gazillion photos. One lunchtime we went for a tour of the chateau and ramparts - the walled part of the city consists of over 50 towers, and its possible to walk around the ramparts a fair way. 

We made it into the new area of town as well, and had a lovely afternoon shopping ...

... and we went on a little boat tour too ...

On our second sightseeing day we went to Lavantel to the Musee de Textiles .... 

... and we saw some fascinating spinning and weaving demonstrations ...

Over the week we had lots of lovely food and of course vino!

But all too soon it was time to go home again. Going back to the reality of laundry and cooking was a bit of a shock to the system, I can tell you! 

I've been a terrible blogger this year, but am hoping to get things started again with this post - so watch this space and next time I will have some crafty happenings for you.

Til next time, hope you have some crafty fun,

Jillxxx

Pink and Blue Cushion

Waaaaaaay back when I first started crocheting (well, ok, it was only about 18 months ago), after making a few teddy blankets and scarfy things, I decided to really go for it, live dangerously, throw caution to the wind, and make A Cushion Cover ! Whoop!

I got out my notebook and pencils and drew a little plan of the cushion cover I had in mind. 

My stash was fairly minimal back then, so I didn't have too many colours to choose from, yet funnily enough, this is one of my favourite colour combos so far. I love the dark blue and dark pink especially, and really wish I'd noted down the brand and shade, because I have absolutely no idea what I used (and bizarrely don't even seem to have any small bits left).

The little 3 round grannies mounted up pretty quickly ....

.... and my favourite oatmeal yarn (random stuff from Hobbycraft but I use it loads) was just right for the final round.

I played with the layout a bit (and gosh my pictures may not be that great now but they've definitely improved!) ....

I didn't use join-as-you-go, instead I joined the squares together using double-crochet - yes it's tedious, but I simply adore the beautiful straightness of the outlines of those squares.

Of course at first it all looks a bit wrinkly, but nothing that a bit of good old steam blocking won't sort out ....

And so the front of my cushion cover was complete. All I had to do was turn it into an actual proper cover with a front, a back, an opening and a filling. Easy, right ? Er so why did it take me over a year ???!! Finally, at the weekend just gone, I made a bold decision, and rescued the poor thing from one of my many to-do piles. Also in that pile were two little blue cardigans that my girls grew out of a couple of years ago. Age 3-4 and 5-6. Aaaaahhhhh sweet. 

The cardigans had been deliberately set aside to be upcycled, and they seemed like the perfect colour for the back of the cushion cover, complementing the blue accent on the front.

I fastened up the cardigans' buttons, then chopped off a chunk of the sleeves to square them up, sewed up where I'd cut, and then cut most of the back off, leaving a large rectangle with buttons down the front.

I overlapped the 2 rectangles (one from each cardigan), envelope style and made up a complete cover with an off-white front, and the upcycled cardigans as the back.

Finally, I hand-sewed the crocheted piece onto the front of my cover, and put in an old cushion pad that I'd set aside.

And there you have it, my pink and blue cushion :)

It's one of those projects which, when I finally got round to completing it, it didn't really take that long, and I am left wondering why on earth it took me so long ??? And now I need to work in applying that to all the other WIPs in all those little piles around the house :)

My Mum's Monochrome Cushion

I've been looking forward to writing this post with a mixture of fear, trepidation and total excitement!
I've finally, only 2 days late, finished my Mum's Mother's Day cushion. Honestly, it's a very simple piece but took me ages to finish, mainly because I hand-sewed some bits but also partly because I kept stopping to take photographs so I can write My First Tutorial - hurray!

Before we get to that though, let me share with you my Design Process, otherwise known as Colouring In.

I tried a few different designs but my Design Team (Little Miss and Little Tomboy) reckoned #2 was the best. They also had a go at creating their own individual designs too.....

.... so I now have a couple of other cushions to rustle up :) I love how different they are! And how colourful! Which is a good time to point out that my Mum and Dad's living room is mainly grey, black and a reddish shade, that's why Mum's cushion is monochrome. I quite like the simplicity of the monochrome but am looking forward to crocheting up the zingy ones for the Design Team!

Anyway, on with the tutorial.

Envelope Cushion Cover Tutorial
I'm going to show you how to take your large crochet square and transform it into a cushion cover - it's a sewing tutorial. I won't cover the how-to of the crochet itself, mostly as I didn't photograph any of the crocheting bit, plus it's not my pattern - as mentioned previously its this shell-stitch pattern from an old issue of Let's Get Crafting: Knitting and Crochet magazine.
 
I decided to make the cushion a simple envelope style, with a single button fastening.
Now, if you were sensible, before you start crocheting, you would find a cushion pad and then crochet a square roughly the same size to fit it. I however was not sensible, I jumped straight into the best bit - crocheting - produced a lovely square and then thought AH - what cushion will fit this now ???!!! Luckily I found one lying around the house that was Just The Right Size.

Once you have your crochet square and your cushion, you will also need:
- a piece of material that measures about 5cm wider than your cushion, and twice as long as your cushion, plus about 10cm extra on the length for hemming. So say your cushion measures 20cm by 20cm, your material would be about 25cm wide by about 50cm. You can see mine laid out in the photo above
- suitable colour thread
- needle and pins
- a natty button (optional but tarts it up a bit)
- sewing machine (optional but makes it a lot faster)
- an iron for pressing (optional but makes it neater)

On each of the short sides (i.e the ends) of your material, fold over about 1 cm and press, then fold again about 3cm, pin, and press - as shown below.

My material is plain black so there's no right or wrong side, if yours has a right side then you want to be turning the hem in towards the wrong side, so that the right side looks nice and neat. Hope that makes sense. In my photo above you are looking at the wrong side.
Sew straight along these short ends and remove pins: each short end is now nicely hemmed.

Now, turn your material over so it's right side up.
Fold over the short ends towards the middle, right sides together, so that the overlapping part lays down the middle. Your wrong sides will be showing again now, and you can see the hems (you will turn it inside out in a minute to make the right sides show). Make sure that when its folded over like this that it's roughly the same size as your cushion. Adjust how much it's folded by if necessary.
Here's how mine looked folded over in the photo ..... (and remember its the wrong side you can see)

Pin along the unhemmed sides, as shown above, then sew along both these sides. Don't worry about the rough edges on these hems, they'll be hidden inside the cushion. Once you've sewn along both sides be sure to take out all the pins.
So now you should have a nice square shape with a flap that opens, see ......

Turn the whole thing inside out, and make sure to push really well into the corners to make them nice and pointy. If you have thick material this can be tricky, and using a crochet hook (or a chopstick) to push the corners out will really help.

Now you have a lovely right-way-round pointy-cornered-flap-opening cover for your cushion. And hopefully the cushion and the cover are the same size more or less...

At this stage it's tempting to shove the cushion in and enjoy its plumpitiness, but tryyyyy and wait until you attach the crochet. That way you will get maximum impact!

Take your crochet square and position it over the non-flap side of the cushion cover. Pin it into place and sew it on. You could probably machine-sew this part for speed, but I didn't want any stitching visible, so I over-sewed by hand all round. I was able to gently put each bit of the edge in just the right place then too.

Once all the sewing was complete all that remained was to add a label and a button. You could skip these parts, the folded over flap is enough to conceal the cushion-inner, but I think a button finishes it off nicely, with a label giving it an extra little something.

In my stash of craft bits and bobs I had some little fabric labels that came free with an issue of Simply Homemade magazine. I hand-sewed one onto the corner of the back of the cover....

.... I hand-sewed a button loop, along the centre of the back flap, (which I was very pleased with as I hadn't done that before). I used a nice little how-to make button loops from ysolda.

.... and then I hand-sewed on a button.

And then for the moment of truth. .....
Would it fit ....??
It's not looking good ......

...........please let it fit .............

...... hurray!!!!!!! It fits!

Look at the front view ....

.... and how the finished cushion appears compared to the original design ......

.... and how invitingly squishy it looks on a cosy chair with my favourite magazine and my gorgeous Mother's Day flowers .....

I hope you find the tutorial helpful or at least mildly interesting!

I'm really really pleased with my Mum's cushion. I know my Mum will love it too so I'll be popping off to the Post Office tomorrow to send it on its merry way to her in Northern Ireland. Better late than never!