Handmade Swatch Cushions

I've become a little bit obsessed with adorning my house with cushions and in doing so have reignited my love affair for sewing. I bought my mini john lewis sewing machine about 4 years ago and for just £50 is one of my best buys ever. At the time the lady in the haberdashery said I should get the £99 version as this one was designed for really light sewing and not cushions/ bag making. However it's never given me and problems and is the perfect first sewing machine - I highly recommend it!

I made these cushions from a selection of swatches ordered from the John Lewis website. You can order 6 to any address within a period of time for free. They post them to your house completely free of charge and they have some of the most amazing fabric's on offer. I know it's a little unorthodox to order swatches to make free cushions but I do end up spending a lot of money in the haberdashery section of John Lewis so I think it's fine. You can order your swatches here. You can only order 6 at a time and you do need 7 to make each of these cushions that are about 40 x 40 cm. But you can of course order swatches to different addresses, maybe work, home, parents house, boyfriends house ... you get the idea.

1. You need to sew four swatches vertically together and three swatches horizontally together. 
2. Then sew them altogether to make a massive piece of patchwork swatch. 
3. You then just need to sew the edges on two more sides. 
4. Sew the edge about a centimeter on the remaining open side to neaten it up. 
5. Put your cushion inside then work out where you need your buttons.
6.  Sew the buttons on then make holes for the buttons on the other side. 
7. You can then sew round the button holes to stop them fraying and to keep it all neat. 

It's so easy to do - I bought some buttons from John Lewis that were about 20p each and used the inner cushion pads from some old cushions I had lying around. Altogether these cost less than £1 each and I love them. They really set off some plainer cushions I have and look so cute on my sofa's!