Laura has been back behind the sewing machine making these lovely handmade Double Wedding Ring cushions as gifts for her friend’s weddings – how fitting! They make such a lovely gift and what a great sewing project for using up your fabric scraps and showing off lots of lovely prints and patterns 💕
“For reasons unknown, there are bags and boxes of fabric offcuts and even meterage stored in a dark and dusty upstairs room in the local village hall. Apparently, the fabric has been there for years. Maybe left over from when there was a local sewing/crafting group, although nobody seems certain of that? (Side note: once upon a time there was a sewing/crafting group I could have joined?! Oh the joy that could have been!) Whatever the reason, I shall thank the fabric fairies for their generous gifts for there are bits of absolutely beautiful fabrics in there! Lightweight cottons from many eras in a huge array of colours just perfect for EPP or scrappy sewing; light and heavier weight upholstery in small and large pieces that must have once hung on display in a furnishing store; even the odd bit of lace or netting. I have already spent many enjoyable hours sorting through the fabric and getting lost in the possibilities of it all. It is from this fabric that I pulled together a large range of pretty, coordinating scraps to make these wedding gifts for two friends.”
“The brides-to-be are my lovely friends Beth and Katie. Twins who got together with their boyfriends at basically the same time, got engaged at basically the same time, and are now getting married at basically the same time. Given all that, you will be surprised to learn that they are NOT identical, haha. I agonised over what to make for them for a long time, it had to be meaningful and of course beautiful. In the end, I realised the perfect thing had been staring me in the face from basically every quilting book there is: the Double Wedding Ring block! This patchwork block is traditionally made and given to couples on their wedding day. The design utilises interlocking rings, which of course mimic wedding rings and symbolise many of the same things: unity, eternity, and love. I went for the segmented version so I could show off as many of those pretty fabric scraps as possible, although just simple solid ring versions do exist. I chose to foundation paper piece each ‘arc’ in my blocks and then pieced the background sections on, but it is also possible to use English paper piecing for a design like this. I gotta say, it was much easier than I expected it to be, it just looks like a difficult block but I was pleasantly surprised! If you have always wanted to try a double wedding ring block consider this your encouragement!”
“Beth is a pink lover through and through. Her fiancé said that when they paint their new house he will be gently reminding Beth that colours other than pink exist. I hope he doesn’t mind my contribution to the pink agenda with this pink cushion! Katie is definitely an appreciator of blue, her wedding invitations are a lovely dusty blue and her bridesmaids will be wearing dresses of the same colour. For a bit of a break from full-on floral, I’ve included a few different denim scraps in her cushion too. Gosh, I hope they love them!”
“If you also wanted to make your own scrappy block/cushion/whatever but don’t have access to mysterious bags of fabric scraps from your local village hall, worry not! You could instead use one of Alice Caroline’s Liberty All-Sorts 100g bags which will give you a variety of fabrics in scrappier pieces or the mixed Liberty swatch packs which will contain different colourways of multiple different fabric prints in small 5.5” x 5.5” pieces. I must confess: the cushions are definitely 99% made from the village hall fabrics but I couldn’t resist using a few Liberty Tana Lawn® scraps too. They just matched so well – have fun spotting them!”