Sewing B!

No doubt you were all glued to your seats last night for the first episode in the second series of The Great British Sewing Bee - I know I was.  The boys (and the dog) were under strict instructions to "Shhhhh!" as I didn't want to miss a minute of it ;-)  I just love the fact that sewing has, at last, made its way into a mainstream, primetime television slot - it's no longer a secretive, nerdy pastime, but something to be proud about!  I think it was Heather (on the show) that said she has been sewing for years but never used to tell anyone about it for fear of being labelled "homemade".  I am absolutely in this camp.  I have sewed all my life but for about the first 35 years would rather have poked my own eye out than admit something I was wearing was made by me.  Now, thanks to the new craft trend championed by the the likes of Kirsty Allsopp, sewing is not just cool but something to be admired and gasped over.  The power of television has elevated it from shame to fame!  At last we can be proud of the work we do and have the confidence to truly enjoy sewing and knitting and crochet and all those other fabulous creative hobbies.  Hurrah!

Phew, gosh, let me just get down from my soapbox a moment ...

And tell you about a little bit of inspiration I clocked yesterday.  It's unfortunate that the school walk takes us past some shops and it's unfortunate that those shops might just, sometimes, be purveyors of magazines.  Apart from yarn and fabric and anything connected with the two, I am totally unable to pass by a rack of magazines without purchasing one.  It's an affliction I've had all my life - from Jackie to Smash Hits, Marie Claire to She and now, sadly, Country Homes and Interiors, Good Housekeeping and the like (what, middle-aged, me?).  Occasionally I will fall for the pages of what I consider to be magazine "porn" such as Mollie Makes or Knitting but they are usually expensive and I can usually find all I want in this department by browsing the internet.

This is all a very long-winded way of saying that yesterday.  I bought a magazine.  Again.  This time it was the new issue of Country Homes and Interiors which I still love to buy even though I no longer live in the country and no longer have a country cottage.  Whatever, we're splitting hairs here.  The March issue has some particularly lovely houses, the sort that I drool over, but it was tucked away in a quiet corner that I spotted this:

Yes, it's a crochet cushion, nothing new there.  This, for example is my crocheted (granny square) cushion on my sofa: 

And this is my crocheted (granny square) blanket (bravely trying to cover up my hideous suite):

What you might notice is GRANNY SQUARE which, until now, I hadn't even thought beyond when it came to cushions.  Aha! I thought.  And then I thought about this again:

My cotton tape bargain from last week.  Surely the perfect thing to use for what appears to be a fairly straight forward crochet cushion made from straight rows of treble crochet!  Hee Hee!  So this is how inspiration works folks, you see an idea and you copy adapt it!  Ahh, the brain works in mysterious ways.