Pencils cushion teacher gift

Hello everybody!

At the end of term, the lovely Reception class teacher at my kids' school left to go to a different school. She has been amazing with my kids, so I decided at the last minute she needed a handmade leaving gift. So here is the cushion I made her.

I had a clear idea of the design from the beginning. I have seen several patterns with pencils on Pinterest and similar, but for this I decided to design my own, so it would work with my stash. It turned out when I pulled fabrics that I had a lot fewer solids left than I thought I did. And only one low volume fabric for the backing that I had a suitable quantity of.

Here's my sketch.

I pieced the main panel together by hand.

I then got my kids to write their names on it and embroidered over their writing. I decided to add embroidery to the couple of false start pencil scribbles the kids did, because I thought it added to the effect.

When it was finished, it was clear it was too small for the cushion inserts I had, so I searched my stash for a suitable border. I knew when I came across this rainbow stripe it would be perfect. It picks up the pencil colours nicely.

I was running out of time by this point, so the border was added with the machine.

Moving on to the quilting, again due to the time pressure (I was finishing it literally on the last day of school), I had no option but to use the machine if I wanted it completed on time. I have done very little machine quilting, so I was quite nervous about this. I chose straight lines.

The quilting being quite dense does make it hard to photograph as the light catches the quilting rows and obscures the embroidery. But in person, it's very clear to read, here are some close-ups.

For the backing I used the same plain royal blue that features on a pencil in the main panel. It's a pretty close match for the colour of the school uniform.