Ombre Clamshell Cushions

Back in June I finished the Clamshell Cushion below. It had started as a class sample and then hung around in the WIP pile for a few years before I was in a tidying mood in the Spring.  It reminded me how much I like to work with this shape and technique. Around the same time the Splendid Sampler 2 Sew Along started and one of the first blocks was a clamshell design.

Amy Friend of During Quiet Time made her SS2 clamshell block in solid fabrics blending shades of the same colour in the rows of clamshells, you can see it here.  It was a bit of light bulb moment for me!

I had always made very scrappy clamshells and I may never have thought about using solids if I hadn’t seen Amy’s block.  But it inspired me to begin a new clamshell project using all solid fabric and blending the colours in an ombre style.

 

I began with a deep berry background and chose shades that would blend through pink to coral to orange, and finish with yellow.

If you’d like to know more about the technique I use to prepare the clamshells prior to applique then check out this Instagram post I did with more images and details.

Once I had finished the applique I basted the panel on to wadding and chose colours from my Aurifil 12wt Passionflower Collection before hand quilting above each row of clamshells.

Then I put it aside for a few months before beginning another one!

The first one was all warm colours and reminded me of a sunset so this one would be cool colours and remind me of the ocean. My niece had a special birthday coming up and I realised that a pair of Ombre Clamshell cushions would be the perfect gift for her!

I finished both cushions last week just before I left for a trip to teach in Sweden.

I used the gorgeous Outback Wife fabric (the last of my diminishing stash!) for the backing on both  sunset and ocean cushions. We still have some stock of this amazing bark cloth fabric for sale here on our website. Just search ‘outback wife’ to find them all.

I quilted them with the thread shades in an ‘inverse ombre’ to the clamshell rows, to hopefully show the stitching better.

It was a lovely sunny day last week and I captured all these photos before packing them up to send off.

They’ve been received now and have found the perfect spot on my neice’s sofa 🙂

I’ve really loved working on these Ombre Clamshell Cushions and I’ve got to try really hard not to immediately start another one!

There may well be more of these in the future but currently I’m back to working on commission pieces which are all secret sewing (sadly).

It’s been nice to make something just for the fun of it that I can share in real time while I’m making it!