Astrakan cushions: cushion makeover part 1

I have a dilemma. I have a couple of rather boring beige sofas that are very functional and very comfortable, but they lack a certain pizzazz. I mean they're beige for crying out loud - not magnolia or buttermilk or Devon cream - but beige: flat, dull beige with tones of smog-grey.

I've always been committed to not throwing things out if they still have life in them. I've been into up-cycling/ recycling since forever, so chucking them out for something more glamorous is a no-no! It has occurred to me that I could dye the covers, but that's far too risky. These sofas live in our family home in Northern Spain, and I can only imagine what slightly hot bodies, still a bit damp from the swimming pool might do to the dyed cloth in the heat of summer ... . I've got a nasty feeling that my friends and family might find that a lot of the colour had come away on their legs - which would not be a good result for anyone.

So my B-Plan is to inject a little interest with some strategically-chosen scatter cushions. Now, as it happens, I have lorry-loads of scatter cushions - no, honestly, I do. But none of them are appropriately dressed for what I have in mind. Now here's the master plan: I've bought a huge consignment of on-offer, cheap-as-chips, chunky wool in 2 colours, and I plan to knit/crochet my way to a new look with a collection of contrasting but co-ordinating cushion covers.

And here is my first cushion makeover:

Astrakan cushion

Ta-dah: meet the Astrakan. It's pretty straight-forward to make. I decided to use the more time-consuming astrakan stitch on only one side, and use a plain double crochet that I could bomb through quickly on the reverse side. And this is how the reverse side turned out:

The reverse side

The texture on the Astrakan side is really, divinely loopy. It sort of invites your fingers to dive in and tease the pile. And the best bit of all is that it's quite easy to do.

My cushion measured 21"/ 54 cm x 13 1/2"/ 34cm to start off with.

Here it is, sitting with its brother, waiting for its new coat on my (super-untidy!) desk.

The only down-side with this little project is that it devours - and I do mean devours - wool. I used about 500 yards of  Hayfield Bonus Chunky to make this little baby, but it has the very best texture you've ever scrunched in your fingers, and it looks like I spent a fortune on it in some la-di-da designer shop.

Anyway if you'd like to give it a go, here's what you need to do to cover a cushion of this size (21"/ 54 cm x 13 1/2"/ 34cm).

1. Using a 5:00 mm (American H/8) crochet hook cast on and chain 59 stitches. If you're working to another size, the trick here is to crochet a chain that is just slightly snug for the length of your cushion as it will stretch a bit with wear. Crochet your chain so that it looks maybe a couple of links short of the right length, and then chain an extra three stitches to turn for the next row.
2. Work a British Treble or an American Half Treble ( i.e. yarn round once, insert hook into the fourth stitch from the hook, yarn over again, draw the yarn through (3 loops on the hook) wrap the yarn over again and draw two loops through (there are 2 loops left on the hook), wrap the yarn over again and draw the last 2 loops through) and then carry on to do a Treble into each stitch in the chain. This should produce a row of 56 Trebles.
3. When you get to the other side do not turn your work around. There are no row-turns in this pattern. You keep the right side facing you at all times. Now chain 7 stitches and link them with a slip stitch to the front loop of the next Treble in the line. When you work your slip stitch you should have the chain up behind you, like in this photograph. Now chain another 7 and do a slip stitch into the next treble and carry on down the line to the last treble. Have a look at these photos to see how I'm placing my needle when I do that slip stitch:

4. Now, to start the next row,  you need to chain 3 and then work a Treble into the back of the slip stitch where the first chain 7 from the last row were joined in. Carry on across the row, working a Treble into the back of each of the 7 chain joining slip stitches. You should have a row of 56 Trebles when you finish.
5. Repeat rows 3 and 4 until the work measures the correct depth for your pillow, finishing on a Treble row which will be tidier and easier to sew up.
6. Cast off, darn in your ends and admire your work. You have finished the front of your cushion cover.

And it just wouldn't be complete without one of my high-tech crochet maps, drawn with the assistance of my super-sophisticated graphite software.

Now it's time to do the back cover for the cushion.

7. Cast on 57 stitches (56 stitches for the length of the cover and one stitch for turning. You need to work out your number if you used a different sized cushion - it will be 2 stitches less than whatever you went with for the front cover).
8. Work a British Double Crochet or American single crochet stitch (hook in, yarn over and pull yarn through the first loop on the needle (2 loops on the needle), yarn over and draw 2 loops through) into the second stitch from the hook. Continue like this all the way along the line, working 56 double crochet stitches in total.
9. Chain 1 stitch to turn, and work a line of another 56 double crochet stitches working into the front loops only of the doubles in the previous row. By only working the stitches through the front loops in this way you will incorporate a slight ridge from the unused back loops of the previous row, which gives the striped/ striated texture that you can see on the reverse side of my cover. Alternatively, if you're not bothered about having this texture, just work the rows of double crochet as normal.
10. Keep going until your back cover is the same size as your front cover. Lay the front cover wrong side down to compare them as it's impossible to see what you're doing with the Astrakan side face up!

11. When you've got the right size, cast off and sew the two sides together with your cushion in the centre.

Ta-dah! You've just made the Astrakan cushion. Stand back and admire your handiwork!

And now I'm off to work out a style for another, bigger cushion to pair with my little Astrakan. I'm thinking stocking stitch stripes of the same grey colour with the acid green might look good.

Watch this space, and I'll let you know how I get on.

All the best,

Bonny x

Top 5 West London dog walks: Northala Fields

Now for something a bit different: Northala Fields. Maybe you've seen it from the A40. It's on your left driving out of London: that park with those strange, conical hills with tiny, ant-like people, working their way to the top.

Do you remember how they appeared out of nowhere back in 2008? One day there was nothing, just some nondescript derelict land with building rubbish, and the next day there was this weird landscape ... .

To my way of thinking this is a funky park. Funky? Well it's hard to say, but there's nothing quite like Northala Park in the rest of London. It was built out of the rubble from the old Wembley Stadium and the stuff that they dug up when they were building Westfield. Ealing Council hit upon the brilliant plan of offering the then-derelict site to the developers as a place to dump all their building spoil, charging them £70 to £90 per lorry-load for the privilege. 60,000 lorry-loads later they had the raw materials with which to construct the four conical hills, that now sit in a slight curve along the side of the A40. And I, for one, think that this was a brilliant way to recycle rubbish that would otherwise have been destined for a landfill site 100 miles away. It just goes to prove that one man's junk is another man's treasure!

Northala Fields fishing pond

The resulting landscape is ... well, the word just has to be funky. It's pleasing to the eye, although it's like nothing Mother Nature would ever have created. It's modern, metropolitan and kind of re-invents the concept of a city park. Everything you'd expect to find is there, but just not in the conventional form in which you'd expect to see it. Children and adults alike delight in the challenge of climbing the hills for the super views of the city in the distance, and the traffic on the A40 just below. And, believe me, from the top of the tallest hill the vehicles on the A40 look more like toy cars.

There's something humorous about the landscape design; I can't help but smile when I look at those strange little hills. What do they look like? Burial mounds from Salisbury Plain or something extra-terrestrial? I don't know. Who cares? They're fun!

The city of London from Northala Park

The Sunday before last we went there to walk off a few calories after lunch. It was a glorious spring day and the place was heaving with people. I've never seen it so busy. There seemed to be folk there from everywhere, talking loads of different languages, each observing their own dress and cultural customs and all muddling along very happily together: London at its multi-cultural best.

The park has a couple of inventive play areas for the little people. They've built a miniature conical hill to support a rather splendid slide, which you can just see to the right in the photo below. And there are more miniature hills made out of that safe-surface recycled rubber in the playground beside the Kensington Road gate. The play areas have been cleverly designed with verve and humour. I especially liked the climbing frame in the shape of a ship sitting beside the ponds. If there hadn't been so many people around I'd have had a bounce on it myself.

The sailing ship climbing frame with the slide to the right

And then there are the fish ponds, which I was told are 8 to 10 feet deep and well stocked with coarse fish.

The fish ponds

Fishing at Northala Fields

The venue is open to the public for fishing; all you have to do is buy a day-ticket, bring your tackle and off you go. I found a link for the fishing details, which you can check out if you're interested: Northala fishing

The park sits beside one of the busiest roads into London from the North West, but there's not much traffic noise once you're inside. The hills were designed to shield the park and its users from the noise and pollution of the A40, and they certainly seemed to be doing that when we visited.

If you fancy a coffee or an ice-cream there's the San Remo cafe just beside the fishing ponds. The little terrace outside makes a good spot for an al fresco cappuccino.

If you'd like to check out Northala Fields the address is: Northala Fields, Kensington Road, Ealing, UB5 6UR. The nearest underground station is Northholt (on the Central Line).

If you're coming by car from London you need to exit the A40 at the Target Roundabout and go right round the roundabout to take the exit to go back to central London. As you go down the slip-way to rejoin the A40 there's a little road that goes down to your left. Take this, go right at the T-junction at the end, which takes you through an underpass below the A40 and then take the next right which will get you into one of the designated Northala Fields car parks - or there's another one straight ahead. Bizarrely there are no signs to direct you to Northala Fields from the A40. But I've drawn a diagram - drum roll - with the very latest, and most sophisticated, mapping software (not!). Just follow my turquoise arrows if you're coming from London, and you'll get there no problem.

The Northolt underground station is further up Church Road (the pretty pink one). It runs straight into Mandeville Road, which is where the station is.

Enjoy!

Bonny x

Random Friday: 5 random things about my week ...

1. Dinosaur Flowers

My eight year-old son is a bit of a dinosaur-geek. He loves the big lizards, and eats, talks, sleeps, breathes, dreams dinosaurs. Surprisingly, however, this week he's been taking a very keen interest in  .... magnolia trees. As we've walked to school he's pointed them out to me: red magnolia (not quite in blossom), white, single magnolia (in full blossom) and light pink double magnolia (slightly past its best). They've all been duly noted down with an actuarial attention to detail. So what's got into the dinosaur buff? Well, he's learnt from an Alan Titchmarsh documentary that the ancestors of the magnolia were among the first flowering plants to live on our planet, and ... wait for it ... they co-existed with the dinosaurs! I don't think either of us will ever look at the magnolia in the same way again.

Dinosaur flowers a.k.a. magnolia blossoms

2. Daffodils

When I've not been obsessing about magnolias I've been enjoying the daffodils. The North Wind brought winter back to us for a while this week. Yesterday we had the equinox and enjoyed our first official day of spring, but it didn't feel very spring-like. The happy upside of the cold spell is that it has prolonged the lives of these cheerful yellow flowers. This is how Ealing Common looked yesterday when Maxi and I took our first spring promenade:

Ealing Common on the first day of spring

Ealing Common bounded by the Uxbridge Road

The Ealing Common daffodils

3. Maxi's new look

I've got used to Maxi's new look after his doggy makeover last Friday. It was a bit of a shock at first, but now I like it.  He looks like a dog with attitude, which, of course, he is. He's a squeaky little dog with all the come-and-get-me attitude of a great, big, enormous dog!

Still cute? Sure, I'm still cute!

Remind me again: what am I supposed to do with this cushion thing?

4. Bubble Tea

On Wednesday I drank my very first bubble tea. It didn't have any conventional bubbles, but it was very nice all the same. I'll be going back for seconds ... .

5. Grease paint rainbows

Emi, the eight year-old dinosaur-geek, has been starring in his school play this week. He was in a chorus-line of singing monks, who all wore stage make-up for the first time in their little lives. What I have learnt is that stage make-up creates grease-paint rainbows in the bathroom when an eight year-old tries to shower himself clean before bed.

Anyway it's been a fun week. I hope you've had a good one too.

All the best for the weekend,

Bonny x

The perfect spring cowl to wear with a white shirt

I love a classic white shirt. It looks so clean, so crisp and so effortlessly elegant. Know what I mean? And this morning I'm busy dressing up my white shirts with a new made-for-spring scarf/ cowl.

What do you think?

Or, alternatively, it can be worn short with a round-necked T-shirt like this:

It's pretty versatile really, and super easy to make.

 I used about 60 yards of each colour of some left-over wool that I had from another project. Here are my raw materials. The pink, blue, ivory and yellow are Sublime baby cashermere merino silk in 4 ply and the purple is Sublime extra fine merino in 4 ply. They crochet into a lovely, light-weight scarf that's perfect for spring.

 I used a 3.00 mm (which is just a whisker thinner than American size 3 or D)

If you'd like to make one here's how to do it:

1. Cast on and chain 150 stitches. 
2. Join with a slip knot to the first stitch in the chain to make a closed circle.
3. For the first row: chain 4. Work a double treble (English) or a treble (US) into the next stitch to the slip stitch and into each succeeding stitch until you work your way right around the circle to the chain 4 at the beginning. Join with a slip stitch to the 4th chain of the original chain 4. Cast off.
4. Cast on with a slip stitch in the next colour and repeat row 3.
5. Carry on, changing colours as you complete each round until your cowl is as wide as you'd like it to be. I worked mine for 11 rows, so that it had the blue that I'd started with at each edge.
6. Darn in your ends and - ta-dah!- you're done.

It really is the easiest thing to make.

All the best,

Bonny x

Bubble tea ... bubbilicious ...

Not being one to miss a trend I've been on the look-out recently for some bubble tea. It's supposed to be the new big thing. Well this morning, as I was racing around, I got to try some.

Here it is:

It was a sort of coldish day, so I chose a hot tea. This is mango green tea with mango pearls - or rather, mango-flavoured tapioca balls - at the bottom. You can't see them because they're the same colour as the drink.

Here's what they looked like when I got to the bottom:

What did I think?

I had expected it to be more ... well,  more bubbly like a glass of Perrier or perhaps more gently bubbly like a glass of Badoit. But this tea had no conventional bubbles at all.  When I slurped up one of the mango pearls through the straw I had a sort of bubble-like sensation as it burst on my tongue.  They were kind of weird, like globules of very taut frogspawn, but it was a good weird. And, just for the record: no, I have never eaten frogspawn (!).

The tea itself was delicious, once I got used to the idea of drinking a hot drink through a straw.

I can imagine how the cold versions would go down a treat on a hot summer's day. I can see my sister-in-law and I ordering them as we gossip and watch our boys play together in the sun.

 Overall I though it was a very refreshing drink, and a welcome change from my usual coffee hit. I'll definitely order another next time I'm passing.

Bonny x