I’d planned on taking this charity shop find (from long, long ago) to work on at the Bargello sessions at Alex’s “In the stitch zone”, but as I wrote in last week’s blog post I managed to leave the frame on the settee at home.

It was already stretched on a frame and started when I found it. I thought it would cover the piano stool, but it ‘s not quite big enough. It could be extended by adding more canvas, but on looking at the piano stool the cover is perfectly fine as it is. The other alternative was to cover what was my Nanna’s foot stool but, on looking that out, again it’s not quite big enough; and the only thing wrong with it is that the edge needs a new trim.

So I’ve decided to make it into a big cushion, with the Bargello just in the middle of the top like the big canvas work cushion that I did several years ago (2014) (Finished canvas work cushion). It would seem the other later one that I did was when I wasn’t blogging. Another charity shop find?

The centre was done in honeycomb stitch, but I had always intended to do variations of Bargello to finish it.

I did a little reading about the technique and looked at a few books, and then decided rather than follow a pattern I would use the basic principles of zig zags but make it up as I went along. I did this pattern in pairs of stiches, but varied the length of the stitches on each row.

This one is one stitch wide (except where I’ve done two together by mistake, but for some reason the left hand edge is right!). Again I’ve varied the length of stitches on some of the rows.

And this one is three stitches wide with stitches of varying length in the green wool, and two wide on the caramel coloured stitches.

I’ve now done about as much as the centre hexagons that were done when I bought it. We have a catch up / own project week coming up, so I may continue with it then, but it’s easy to pick up when the light is not good, and I feel as if I should make use of the good light that we have at the moment.

We have a few new folk in the group, and it’s been suggested that we take some of the things we have finished or are WIP’s for them to see the sort of things that can be done. Plans are being considered for next term.

Alex has sent us all a list of things that we have done since the group stated pre-lockdown; some I had forgotten about, so once I sort them out they’ll pull me in several directions!