Dijanne Cevaal figure1

I have four large woven Ottoman pouffes in my lounge room. They are lovely, and good for storage and as footstools but I don't use them much and they take up room. When full of fabric (as one is) or packed tight with polystyrene balls they are also useful as tables, or at a pinch, to sit on. They are not much use for relaxing. I thought I might replace at least two of them with large cushions that can go on the floor. 

After the success of my Kantha cushion, I remembered some Dijanne Cevaal panels I had bought at last year's Adelaide Craft Fair. I loved the panels, but hadn't thought of a practical thing to do with them. One of the panels looked quite good on the second batik fabric I had bought as backup when purchasing for the Kantha piece. I thought it would be good to have a couple more large cushions, so I backed the panel with wadding and old sheeting and got to work.                      

Because the panel was so vibrant in colour I thought it needed to be matched with rich and vibrant threads, as well, perhaps, as a few beads. I found some vibrant blue beads left over from some Christmas angels and added them to the crown. I outlined the crown in a dull gold silk.

I dug out all the rich blue, purple and gold silk threads I had, bought a few more and began to improvise.



I worked the halo in running stitch in Kantha style with a slightly stronger gold. I wanted it to be subtle rather than shiny. I used a yellower gold silk for the necklace.

The hair I worked in a strong brown (partly because the print was quite strong and dark here) in Bokhara stitch.

The face presented a challenge. I don't much like the lips, and will probably change them.

The cape (coat?) I wanted in blue and purple. I settled for a strong darkish blue and a range of purple/mauves for the decorative effect - using the striped design a bit like a sampler.






I had envisaged a needle-lace jerkin in gold to pick up on the halo. I agonised  over this but couldn't decide without actually doing it so went ahead

While I like the needle-lace effect, it did not look like chain mail. I probably can't get that effect without using a metallic, which I didn't want to do. The effect ended up rather more modern than I intended.

I worked the background quilting in a variegated machine thread slightly darker than the fabric, working around and around the outline.

Once I had added the batik  border around the panel, I thought it needed a transition, so I worked a Kantha border in the blue and purple silks of the clothing.






Here is the finished cushion, resting on the pouffes!

In the meantime, I had backed all my other Dijanne Cevaal medieval pieces, prepared them for stitching, and ordered more batik from Chrissy at Batik Fabrics Online. 

It was exciting when the fabric arrived, laying the out to see how well I had done, choosing from a website. I think I did quite well - and have given myself some really interesting work to do over the coming months!