Free Pattern Friday: Meditation Cushion

Welcome to my monthly 'Free Pattern Friday' feature, where I road test a free sewing pattern or tutorial: sometimes a children's one, sometimes an adult's one. I try to publish these posts every first Friday of the month, timed to provide inspiration for those who plan to get their sew on over the weekend. I firmly believe that, if you pick your projects carefully, sewing doesn't have to be a crazy-expensive way to clothe yourself and your family. Thanks to all the amazing pattern designers who have offered up their hard work for us to enjoy for free.

This is a project that I completed a couple of months ago, but I wanted to share it with you now to coincide with #ScrapBustingSeptember, the prompt created by my pal Meg Grandstaff. Meg is encouraging us to get creative and resourceful with our scraps, and all you have to do to take part is work on a project made from, or incorporating fabric or yarn scraps! If you want to hear what Meg achieved and took away from last year's challenge, and what her plans are for this year's, check out my recent conversation with her for my podcast Check Your Thread. 

What is particularly awesome about these meditation cushions,is that they provide a purpose for your annoying, unusable fabric scraps. It's a great alternative to chucking them in the bin destined for landfill, or to an uncertain fate in the textiles recycling collection. You'll be amazed by how many you can fit in one of these! You can also chop up textiles such as worn out tea towels or unwearable old clothes. And even if meditation isn't your thing (it recently became mine, but I like to meditate laying down!), these can be used as extra seating for guests or as a kind of foot stall. So massive thanks to The Daily Sew for making this tutorial available for free. Plus, enormous thanks to Check Your Thread Patron Lois for sharing the tutorial with the community. 

(image source: The Daily Sew)

Pattern type:

This tutorial is for a circular meditation cushion, AKA a zafu. It is comprised of two circles of fabric, and one long strip of fabric that is pleated up and stitched to the edges of the circles. You create an overlap with the ends of the strip to conceal the opening. Technically, you could could stuff your cushion with all manner of materials, however I'm endorsing the use of fabric scraps! You can stitch the opening shut, or make the overlap significant enough that the contents won't come out if left unstitched. 

Sizing info:

Apparantly, most zafus are between 6" and 9" tall, however this project is incredibly customisable to your own preferences. 

Fabric info:

According to the tutorial: 'This project works best with 59″ (150 cm) wide fabric. However, you can piece together fabric if yours is not that wide. Choose a fabric that is on the heavy side like canvas, duck, denim or upholstery fabric. Many of these come 59″ wide so, bonus.' 

I used a remnant of stretch denim that had been in my stash for a while. It had a weird join along the width that made it difficult to find a project for it. I didn't have quite enough to cut the circles and strip in full pieces, so I had to make a join along the centre of the circles. If you don't have a remnant of fabric that runs across from selvedge to selvedge, you could easily piece together fabrics for that also. Lois actually makes her strips longer than the tutorial suggests by piecing them, so they don't need to be stitched closed. This means she can give them to non-sewing friends and family to stuff with their own textile waste. 

Findings:

This was SUCH a fun project! Yes, I probably could have figured out how to do something similar to this on my own, but it can be so nice and relaxing to simply follow along with some else's instructions. There's also a video version on YouTube if that's your preferred method of info transmission!

The cushion could house a surprising amount of scraps and cut up textiles. I have a feeling it might 'settle' and become a bit loose, so I gave instructions to the recipient of the cushion to carefully cut open the opening and stuff with old socks if that happens...

Would I make this again?

Absolutely! Patron Lois has been whipping heaps of these up to give out to friends and family to help them deal with their textile waste, and I might start doing the same some day.

Free Pattern Friday: Unicorn Cushion/Pillow

Welcome to my monthly 'Free Pattern Friday' feature, where I road test a free sewing pattern or tutorial: sometimes a children's one, sometimes a women's one. I publish these posts every first Friday of the month, timed to provide inspiration for those who plan to get their sew on over the weekend. I firmly believe that, if you pick your projects carefully, sewing doesn't have to be a crazy-expensive way to clothe yourself and your family. Thanks to all the amazing pattern designers who have offered up their hard work for us to enjoy for free.

Happy New Year!!! I've gone a bit off piste with this month's Free Pattern Friday pattern choice. I decided to pick a pattern that I could use to make a non-garment Christmas present, so I went with this kitschy unicorn's head shaped cushion by Rebecca Page that I made for my 6yo daughter. Thanks to them for sharing their hard work for free. If you have a child, or kitsch-loving adult in your life with a birthday on the horizon, then you may wish to bookmark this bonkers project... 

(image source: Rebecca Page)

Pattern type:

This cushion/pillow/toy pattern is easily accessible by adding it to your cart and going through the checkout on the Rebecca Page website. The downloadable PDF includes both the pattern pages and instructions in one. The instructions feature step by step photos, plus there's a cheat sheet for those who wish to wing it a bit, or are making it for the second time. You can also leave off the horn to make a horse version. 

Sizing info:

Unsurprisingly, this pattern is for a single sized item. The finished size is approx. 10"/25cm wide by 15"/38cm high. Mine may have ended up in being a bit smaller because I took a more sizeable seam allowance than the suggested 1/4 inch. 

Fabric info:

The pattern advises using woven, non-stretchy fabric for the main part, including cotton, felt and fleece. I had this remnant of corduroy knocking about that I chose to use to give it a lovely texture. For the mane and fringe I used some synthetic transparent stuff that I was given by someone having a clear out a few years ago. I went with some leftover pleather from my lovely colleague Linda for the horn. I'd recommend doing a Google image search to see some of the other people's versions out there for inspiration. Some people have gone really disco with their choice of fabrics for the mane/fringe and horn sections! Please note that I trying to keep things pretty toned down so I left off the suggested braid from the horn and additional ribbon/braid detail from the mane.

Findings:

I'll be honest with you, I have no idea how long this took to make! I was doing it in tiny windows of time when Dolores with either out at school or had gone to bed. The trickiest bit was the eye detail. They suggested a few options to do that, but I ended up using a wide satin stitch on my machine. It was made trickier because of the texture of the cord, and I'd definitely recommend practising on a scrap of fabric whichever technique you go for as it's such a noticeable feature. 

My only real complaint was the aforementioned teensy seam allowance. At one point you're sewing through a LOT of layers (two layers of the main head, plus ears, horn and mane), and taking less than 1cm would have been very tricky I feel, even if your chosen fabric was thinner than mine. I also found the exact positioning of the horn, mane, ears and fringe to be a bit vague, so I kind of made it up by looking at other completed examples. 

Customisation ideas:

Ohmygoodness. As I suggested before, do a Google search to see how other people have interpreted this pattern. There are so many ways this pattern could go. I do feel that a horn-free version for a horse lover would be very cute. 

Would I make it again?:

No offence to the Rebecca Page crew, but probably no. Unless Frankie develops a love of unicorns or horses, I can't imagine I'll return to this pattern. It was ever so fun to make though, a great scrap buster, and Dolores loved the resultant cushion more than I thought she would, so yay!