Starfish cushion

Back in the sewing room with Miss Marple trying to sort out who threw the body from the train and some old bits of stuff. I knitted a starfish in cream cotton in about 2004 and always intended to incorporate it into something but was never sure what. Then I found an old beige linen skirt that I only wore a couple of times in the early 1980s. It was a size 10 (as I was myself at the time) and cheap but a lovely heavy linen that moved well when I walked. Unfortunately it didn't respond well to laundry and came out, after its first wash, about three sizes smaller. It is now helping a starfish make a cushion.

I struggled to get strips wide enough to form the back as the gores are quite narrow 16" up, and the seam allowances on the zip are very very narrow and will probably not last for long but I'm happy with it. I decided to handstitch the zip in with some thick cotton thread and it was actually probably easier, if not necessarily quicker, than doing it on the machine. I have been reading/looking at a lot of Alabama Chanin things recently and I think I like the move away from automatic machining that it seems to be engendering in me. I know there aren't a lot of zips in her work, but if there were, I like to think they would look a bit like this!

 A couple of hours of playing and a free cushion. Looks quite good in my sewing room too!