How To Do Scribble Sewing
A while back, I made a cushion as a birthday present for a friend. It may seem a little random that I gave someone a skull cushion (Mr PSGC certainly wasnt a fan)………..but we had been shopping together earlier in the year and she had pointed out a rather spendy rams skull cushion. It was lovely, but too expensive to buy for her, so I thought I would do my own spin using scribble sewing.
Unfortunately I didnt take any photos as I was making it, but it was fairly easy, and probably doesnt need photos to explain. It’s not embroidery like your gran would do….but for me thats a bonus..right?
Material needed:
- Cushion pad.
- Coordinated thread for the cushion hems.
- Embroidery thread for the skull.
- Length of fabric for making the cushion.
Equipment
- Sewing machine
- Paper and pencil.
Method:
For the Scribble Sewing:
The scribble sewing needs to be done before the cushion cover is assembled. First I drew a rough picture of a skull in pencil on some thin paper. Tracing paper is ideal for this. Next attach this with a few pins to the front panel of the cushion.
With the embroidery thread on the sewing machine, follow the outline and main features of the skull with a straight stitch. Essentially you are sewing the paper to the fabric.
Once the rough features, are obvious on the fabric/paper sandwich, removed the paper. Carefully tear the paper away from the fabric, taking care not to pull the stitches. You may have to pull some of the paper out with tweezers. It is important to get all the scraps out now before you put more stitches in.
With the outline in place to work with, go back over these lines with a combination of zig zag and straight lines to “colour in” until you are happy with the look.
Obviously if skulls aren’t your bag, you could use any shape (a letter for example)….I also think this style would look really good in rainbow or very bright colours….(and obviously you could do this on existing garments not just cushions).
Once the scribble sewing is complete, sew together the rest of the cushion pieces to make a cover.
In case you need help on how to make it in to a cushion cover……..
To Make a Cushion Cover:
There are lots of different ways of making a cushion cover, but this method is very simple envelope fold, with no zips.
To calculate how much fabric is needed:
The fabric needs to be 2cm wider than the pad for hems, and 2x as long plus 20cm overlap for envelope opening plus 6cm for hems.
So a 50cm pad will need fabric 70cm wide; 126cm long
Cut the fabric so that you have 3 pieces – The first, the front (section A) will be the same size as the cushion plus an allowance for seams – I leave approx 1cm all the way around.
The back has 2 pieces. Both will be the width of the cushion plus 1cm on each side. One (section B) will be 80% of the length of the cushion pus 2cm hems, the final piece (section C) will be 20% of the cushion length plus 20cm overlap plus 2cm hem allowance.
Phew. Hope that makes sense.
To assemble the cover:
Sew all three pieces into a line, with a 1cm hem on each. The middle piece will be the full size of the cushion – and will be the front. Make sure the scribble pattern is the right way up.
You will now have 1 piece of fabric again. At the top is section C, in the middle section A and at the bottom section B. Sew a double hem on the loose end each of C and B to leave a neat edge.
Lay the pattern side of Section A face down, fold section C in, and section B on top of that to create an envelope.
Sew a 1cm hem up each of these side, before turning the cover inside out, and inserting the cushion pad.