Precious cargo

In early January I was very excited when Miranda asked me if I would help her with something she was making for her Mother the S-T-B-F-A's birthday.  M had spent nearly a year stitching a piece of tapestry that she wanted made into a cushion cover, this is where I, and a scrap of left over over chintz, came in.

During our planning stage M (winner of Mobius print design award) told me not to be shocked at her choice of backing fabric.  She said when I saw the tapestry I would wonder why she had chosen home counties floral to back such an edgy design but it had special significance to S-T-B-F-A and her.  It was the last scrap of fabric left over from M's granny's sofa cover.  Many years ago M's Granny had had a terrible fire at her house and a lot of her possessions that had reminders of childhood, growing up and visits to Granny were lost.  This scrap of fabric had lain in a chest at S-T-B-F-A's house for years.

When the packet from M arrived in the post, I saw what she meant!  I took a long look at the fabric and the embroidery and thought hard. It would have been fairly straight forward to make up a simple back for the cushion but more interesting to link them in some way.  The only link immediately apparent was a single shade of dark red, which I could use for the cording around the edge

The silver stitching behind the word LOVE gave me an idea.

I love dramatic linings and backings the fact that they are hidden a lot of the time adds to their allure.  Having cut out the main backing I chose one flower from the scraps and machine bound the edge in silver

Cut out the shape and stitched it, by the center only, over a similar flower on the backing itself

Then I posted it back to M.  I posted it on 12 January, by 17th it still had not arrived, nor 18th or, 25th.  On 3 Feb I checked with the post office to see if there was still  a backlog from Christmas (vain hope).  M and I both sent off lost parcel forms to Belfast (postal never-never land).  There was not enough space for all my pleas to the PO to have a very thorough look, so I wrote all around the margin of the form as well.  The PO sent me a nice letter and a book of first class stamps but no hope.

Then on 18 Feb M arrived home from work to find this on her door step

   
M gave her mother the birthday cushion at lunch very soon afterwards

S-T-B-F-A writes in a shepherd hut in her Cotswold garden  and this is where, after all its adventures the cushion resides.

I asked M if she would like me to stitch initials or a date on the back of the cushion, she asked for MLM 08.01.11.  I used M's own handwriting style by creating a transfer from photocopying and enlarging her note included in the original parcel

I didn't really give the initials a lot of thought, I don't know M's middle names, but later her mother explained it stands for Miranda Loves Mummy or Mummy Loves Miranda, secret code from M's childhood.

All's well that ends well

xx

C

P.S.  S-T-B-F-A is a bit of a mouthful but after this I think I shall be able to refer to her as the Famous Author - bravo!