The Nepenthe Cushion Experiment

If you follow along on socials you would have seen my Nepenthe Cushion experiment over the past month. Nepenthe is the studio's EPP quilt of 2025, and I have been playing with the idea of some surface decoration to break up the areas of heavy solid colour.

Not wanting to experiment on the quilt itself I raided the left over templates I had and decided to make a cushion. It was also a great way of seeing how the blocks would look once they were sewn up and the basting removed, not going to lie, I was blown away with how much I loved this one.

Set of four Nepenthe Blocks with a border as a cushion.

So like so many of my projects, it began in my car... waiting for one child, or another to wrap up their social life. After laying out the main quilt (no, you don't get to see that just yet), I had a few darker toned pieces and a stack of light / white wrap remnants. Luckily just enough to get this beauty created.

I could have used different stash fabrics, but:

• I hate waste, any kind. Though especially previous baby related scraps.

• I like things matchy matchy. I blame the 'tism.

• It was a great learning experience to see how this linen will handle the surface treatment and how to quilt the piece. All of the benefits and no danger to the main quilt.

I would have loved just one more dark template, but sadly there was none to be had.

And so it begins.

The whole top from start to finish only took me a day. Yes, I avoided house work and children for a few hours but I really dont think anyone missed me!

Then I had some fun designing up a cross stitch that I though would contrast the angled pieces. My Em (the quilts intended) had selected the Liberty print Emily Belle as her backing, so using that as inspiration I designed a floral up that worked as a repeat pattern. Its been a hot minute since I designed anything cross stich related, but it was a really fun little side quest and we were both really happy with the results.

No grids... yeah I did that ; )

The left is the whole floral motif and on the right how it repeats. I wanted something that would give me flexibility to pick and choose which areas of the quilt will be covered without it looking off. With this design it will be easy to simply not stitch a leaf, flower, or stop the repeat where I want.

So now we have the part of the story where my Alex deleted a lot of the photos off the cloud... thanks kiddo. Now I have no photos to show you of the trial and error (mostly error) process in deciding just HOW to map out the area to be cross stitched. I did attempt to use an air erasable marker (Sewline), but it dried off way too quickly and I still managed to get wonky lines. The choices came down to wash away aida or waste canvas. I have never used either product, and I was hesitant to submerge the cushion top... so waste canvas it was.

I also opted to baste batting (no backing) to the finished front as well. I wanted to see how this work, as with the main quilt I don't want the back of the quilt being covered in cross stitch. I was worried if I cross stitched the linen without anything to stabilise it that the whole piece would skew and warp. While that didnt happen, I did pull little poofs of batting though to the front... so the debate continues. The plan for backing this piece is to add it on before quilting as per usual... the quilting style is TBD.

I wanted a nice textural finish, so opted to stitch in a Perle 8 (DMC Ecru) and as I had a 14ct waste canvas (DMC) I played around with how large to make my stitches. (While picking up the waste canvas I also grabbed a selection of stranded floss so there was a plan b if needed).

Stitching like normal over one square, no good. It was way too tight for the linen and visually it was too dense, that was a fun night of unpicking! Luckily no harm to the cushion top so all was well in my world. Eventually I settled on stitching over three squares, a bit of a trade off in that it made the design larger than I had envisioned, but I think it was a good move. Keeping in mind that the quilt will be over 55" wide the larger scale will suit well.

Things I have learned about waste canvas:

• Trim as close as you can to your design. The areas I had the least amount of issue with were the ones with the shorter lengths.

• Don't stitch though a strand of the canvas. Because I was going through batting I used a sashiko needle, and half blind and in low light, I missed the grid holes a few times.

• I used a spray bottle to "spritz" the canvas, but as its a warm autumn here I had to re-wet it a few times for it to work well.

• Pull one strand at a time to prevent warping your stitches. I made a few of mine skew, but aftwards I managed to massage them back into place.

After living with this piece for a few days I think I will go back in and add more floral repeats over the entire cushion front. I'm not loving the stronger thread contrast areas, so I will be working in stranded threads as close to the fabric as possible. This has always been about subtle embellishments and not adding too much to the overall quilt. For me the hero has always been the blocks, I just love this design.

And an update on the quilt, 30 of the 110 blocks are now completed!! Super excited! Until next time Possums xx