Not So Spring Deer

Another pre Christmas make, this one remained a closely guarded secret as it was for Tobit.  He mentioned that he would quite likes the trend for stags/deers heads (not real ones though), so I had a think about what I could make him featuring this theme.  I looked at the Big Game pattern by Emily Herrick but it didn’t inspire me on this occasion then I remembered that Julianna of Sewing Under Rainbow had a paper pieced deer pattern.

I printed off the (free) pattern and knew that I could use some Architextures for this – it’s Tobit’s favourite fabric line so I couldn’t go far wrong.

Julianna mentions in her blog post about this pattern that a FQ is needed for the background fabric.  I had slightly less than a FQ of the green tree fabric but I placed all the background pieces on the fabric and worked out that I had just enough!

I quilted around the deer with Aurifil 2021 50wt just to give it a bit of texture, to be honest I could not think of another way of quilting it.

The plan from the beginning was to make a cushion cover so that’s what I did.  I used more Architectures for the backing and binding, after all it’s been sitting in my stash for a while and now it’s in use I get to see it every day on the sofa.

As I was planning on binding the cushion I put a zip in the back:

I used a 2″ wide strip for the binding which makes quite a narrow finished binding which I like the look of and it’s far simpler than piping:

The back of the cushion was based on what sized pieces I had left:

The cushion was well received, I’m delighted with how it turned out and the fact that there is slightly less fabric in my stash than before!

If you want to make your own check out the free pattern here.