One of my favourite designers for Moda is Basic Grey, and I love their Christmas collections. This one is called Figgy Pudding and it had been in my stash of fabrics for quite a while. I traced a stitchery design (from the pattern Santa Wears Red Pyjamas by Leanne Beasley) onto one of the charm squares, then fused a piece of weaveline onto the back...
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...as I'd decided to keep this project very simple, I stitched the charm squares together in a 4x4 layout and then stitched over the traced design using 2 strands of DMC embroidery thread using backstitch. Muslin was used for the backing, and was spray basted to some cotton wadding, then the pieced top was spray basted onto the top of the wadding. This was quilted with a pale grey Aurifil quilting thread, and I used the walking foot as a guide to quilt straight rows half an inch apart...
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...I didn't quilt over the embroidery. When the quilting was completed, I stitched an eighth of an inch all around the quilted piece, then trimmed away the excess backing and wadding. There were enough charm squares in the pack to make two of these large quilted squares...
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...then it was time to make the back, with an enclosed zipper. I folded a piece of fabric in half, and placed the zipper back to front on the wrong side, near the folded edge of the fabric. The zipper was machined into place, using the walking foot (I hardly ever use the zipper foot for sewing in zippers!). This was then turned over, the "flap" pinned out of the way, and another piece of backing fabric machined into place along the edge of the zipper...
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...the back of the cushion is placed RS down, with the front of the cushion RS up and then pinned together. This is then machined together using a longer than usual stitch, an eighth of an inch from the raw edges of the cushion top, through all layers, making sure the zipper has been pulled open. The excess pieces of zipper are trimmed away, making sure you don't trim away the end of the zipper with the zipper pull. The binding is then machined onto the front of the cushion, and then folded over to the back and hand sewn to the back...
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...I really like using 2 different fabrics for cushion backs, and always use a concealed zipper so the cover is easily removed if it needs to be laundered. I love the texture on the front of the cushions that this dense quilting gives...
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...and here are the completed cushions, with a plump feather pad tucked neatly inside.
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