Now, my mother has a favourite colour... Cream. Coming a close second is beige, which is vying for the prize along with taupe. As you can imagine, this is the polar opposite to me with my love of colour. So I dutifully made something that breaks all my own rules, knowing that my Mum would love it.
This cushion is based on a pattern called Adele Heart, that is available to purchase on www.ravelry.com - I admit it, I was drawn to the rainbow of colours that are featured on the pattern for this heart!
As ever with a bought pattern, I found that it didn't quite make what I wanted, so I had to add several extra rounds, repeating the popcorns pattern, to produce a cushion sized heart. I would also change the popcorn rounds so that they are worked from the back of the piece in order to produce fuller popcorns if I make this again. I'm not entirely sure why the pattern author hasn't done that.
Having made two hearts, I made an extra well stuffed heart shaped cushion inner (my Mum loves extra fat cushions) then crocheted the two hearts together with slip stitch. Had I not been running out of time, I would have made the cover removable with buttons along the opening, but I was up against the clock on this project - good thing my Mum is not a spiller of things!
I finished off the cushion with a big cream flower (which I forgot to take a photo of - doh!) and a big vintage pearl button. I will take a photo of the cushion complete with its flower on my next visit to my parents' house and show you.
Lessons learned from this cushion? Always make popcorns from behind - I knew this even as I was following the pattern, and should have trusted my instincts... Make sure to double the time you expect it to take to make a gift.... And finally, sometimes, mother knows best. It does look really rather nice in plain cream.
Yarn used was cream pure wool aran left over from a jumper I knitted a few years ago, hook size 4.5mm.
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