Country Cottage Cushion revealed!

Where does the time go? I cannot believe it is so long since I was here last! And what an exciting time it has been! Beautiful long, sunny, summer days, most of the time anyway, filled with colour! Days spent in the garden, working or just enjoying the summer plants and flowers in the glorious sunshine! Lovely fresh British strawberries every day if I choose- and I DO choose most days while I can! Even hanging the washing out to dry in the fresh air is a real pleasure on these bright, sunny days!

And then there has been all of the sporting excitement! World Cup football, Wimbledon and then the Tour de France, right here in good old Yorkshire! The disappointment of our performances in the first two of these events was completely erased by the overwhelming success of Le Tour de Yorkshire!! What a great Yorkshire welcome we gave them! I knew that people would get right behind the event with bunting and yellow bicycles everywhere but I NEVER expected to see the huge crowds that turned out to cheer the riders on - even in the remote rural areas! There was barely a foot of road anywhere that was not lined with excited spectators! And in some places there were so many thousands of people that the Peloton literally could not get through without slowing down almost to a stop! Great - but a bit mad too! After all, these guys are racing, fast!! The television coverage certainly showed off this beautiful county and it's spectacular scenery to best advantage. 

Needless to say that watching all of this sport from the comfort of my armchair gave plenty of opportunity for some happy hooking! I must say that my tendency to work on numerous projects at the same time is backfiring on me a bit right now! I just have too many things on the go and they are filling my craft baskets literally to overflowing, as you can see! 

I really need to finish some off so that I can move them into my storage cases until homes are found for them! I know where some of them are going, at some point in the future and others have yet to find a home. If you might be interested in giving a home to these or any of my other projects listed here just let me know or click on each individual listing to take you to that item in my Etsy shop.

Anyway, back to overflowing craft baskets! At the moment I'm struggling to get to my yarns, especially when I'm using multiple colours like in my Rainbow Ripple and Flower Garden projects! There are so many projects which are oh-so-nearly finished! Just needing ends weaving in, buttons sewing on etc. 

So, I am making a concerted effort to finish projects before starting anything new - and here is the first one!! My Country Cottage Cushion! Voila!

I just love these multi-coloured squares which are different on each side of the cushion. Many thanks to Kirsten for sharing her free pattern.

I edged my coloured squares with this very pale cream, joining my squares as I went along. There are a couple of good tutorials on how to do this, one from Lucy at Attic 24 and another here, at My Rose Valley. It really is very quick and easy to do once you get the hang of it, it looks neat - and you don't have an ever-growing pile of squares to store, which in my case is a real bonus!!! It's great to be able to really see the project coming together too!

I then finished off each side with three rows of double crochet which you can see in these last two pics. Finally I put the two sides together, wrong sides facing each other and with the right side facing me I joined them with a little seam of more double crochets along three edges, leaving the fourth edge open for getting the cushion in and out. I haven't settled on a means of fastening this open edge yet so that's my next task! And tidying up all those little loose ends! That's my least favourite bit......

I am really quite pleased with the end result - and it feels so good to be getting something finished!!

Eventually there will be two of these - and they do have a home to go to a bit later, but they and their future owner don't know it yet! Hmmmm.........