Maps and cushions

I ventured into my tip of a sewing room for the first time in ages on Saturday and made myself tidy up. Not the major spring clean it needs but I put away the pile of fabric that was taking up most of the floor and sorted through the pile of things to be fixed that were engulfing the sewing machine. It was good. Good to reclaim the space a bit. I fixed the zip on Big Trouble's lion costume and sewed the tassel back onto his favorite hat. I established that J's PJ bottoms are unfixable and found a couple of small projects that were just waiting to be finished. 

Back in the summer when we went to Whitby I bought a tea towel from the Captain Cooke museum. It shows his voyages of discovery and it was quite clear that a couple went via St Helena and Ascension island. The trouble was the islands weren't marked.

So I added them.

On Saturday I rediscovered the tea towel and finally did something with it. It was never intended to be just a tea towel you see. I backed it with a simple envelope back and stuffed a pillow inside.

Ta Da! One extremely large cushion. I kind of love it, even though it is a bit ridiculous.

Next I dug out another map. This time not made by me, but made by my dear friend Lucy. She gave it to me as a leaving present when we left St Helena in July 2014. I think she had intended to make it into a cushion but ran out of time.

She even marked Longwood where we lived. The different panels show the districts.

I backed it, in the true St Helena spirit of upcycling everything, with the front of an old shirt using the buttons as the fastening.

Finally I can see and enjoy it. I completely completely love it.

Thank you my lovely friend.

xx