Saturday 5 November 2011

A Cushion/Throw "Transformer" - A tutorial - Pt 1

So much water under the bridge! My blogiversary and various landmarks seem to have slipped by unheeded, unmarked, uncelebrated but as this will be post number 60 I am determined it should be something of note and what better than a craft 'how to'.  I have been looking back over a year of postings to see what thoughts I had, what projects that suggested a follow up to me that it was high time I dusted off and made something of.

Almost exactly a year ago I posted Hooked Again. I had made enough squares for a cushion cover and was hankering one of those cushions that unfolds to release a throw. So many stores sell  micro-fleece throws and in the drafty winter evenings ahead they can be very useful to snuggle into on the sofa. No matter how carefully you fold them up, they never look quite as attractive in the cold light of day, so disguising them as a cushion seems worth a try. I realise that some would call this a 'quillow' but as I don't think of the blanket as a quilt or the pad as a pillow, this doesn't sit so well with me. To call it a throw-cushion is possibly to invite sport and chaos to the light fittings but I have the ideal word from the most knowledgeable six year old I know, who has assured me that because it transforms completely from one thing to another, I should call it a transformer. So there you have it.

A little research on the internet into how a quillow might be assembled helped of course but I didn't want to get into quilting and patchwork. I wanted as simple method as possible to put together the cover I had already made and the fleecy throw I had just bought, in a way that would give me something that worked and would withstand frequent use and I think I have the answer. It comes from an old BBC magazine called Good  Living with Jane Asher.Years before Kirstie Allsopp led us down the Meadow Gate path to all things Handmade, Jane Asher was showing us she could do far more than decorate a pretty cake. This magazine supported a series she had done back in the nineties.

In order to build up confidence in the whole project, I thought I had better make sure I was entirely happy with the 'transforming' technique. I don't usually plan in great detail but in this case I decided to do a mock up to make sure I could interpret the instructions accurately and as I am not going to do all the patchwork and quilting, I wanted to know just what would be on show at either phase. So I quickly put together a sample knitted square I had just finished and tacked it onto an old tea towel to roughly approximate the proportions of the crochet piece and the fleece throw albeit on much smaller scale. So bear with the rather strange illustrations as I work through the basic 'How it works' using my mock up.

Instructions - Part 1 - How to transform the Throw into a  Cushion

1.The throw should be about 3 times the width of the cushion front and 5 times the length. The cushion front is sewn onto the centre third of the throw at one end. It is sewn on three sides ( as marked by the large arrows) leaving the side facing down the throw open. I think this is shown in my diagram.
2. To begin the transformation, turn the throw over so that the cushion front is face down and fold the throw lengthwise into thirds, each side overlapping the centre.
3. Now turn it over so that the cushion front is uppermost. You now need to reach inside the cushion front. Reach right up to the top corners and pinch these up to include all the layers folded underneath. You then turn the cushion front inside out.
4. When you have made sure that the folds are straightened up again and the corners pushed through properly, it should look like this.
5. Now starting at the end furthest from the cushion front, fold up the throw. Try to make sure that the folds are the same depth as the cushion front so that it will tuck in neatly.

6. Take the end fold and tuck it up into the cushion front and there you are! All done.
From this mock up I learned that the transformation is easy to do and quite neat. I also realised that I would want the completed cushion to have a proper back and not just an exposed part of the throw. And because the front would be showing the wrongside of the crochet when the throw is unfolded, I think it would be better to have a lining.
The steps on how to make up the Transformer throw are coming up in Tutorial part 2, when at last I start to work with the materials for the finished product!