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Dad's Christmas Present - a photo cushion of him and all his great grandchildren

My dad is 91, and lives on the cliff at the seaside. In previous years I have made him cushions using patterns from Bustle and Sew, starting with this seagull which has some lines from the song "Oh I Do Love to be Beside the Seaside" which seemed very fitting!

So the next year I adapted this one from Helen's applique picture "Where shall we Adventure?" by reducing the size and making it to match the seagull on the same ticking effect cotton. Then I added "I must go down to the sea again" from the poem 'Sea Fever' by John Masefield to keep it nautical!

So this year I was scratching my head, wondering what I could give him this time, and I remembered this photo of him with all his great grandchildren on his 2013 calendar. He has eight great grand-kids and one great great grand-kid. He had loved this picture, so it seemed obvious I should use it to make him another cushion, to match the others!

I edited and cropped the photo then printed it on some printable cotton. I used Moda navy ticking effect cotton, and backed it with some fusible woven interfacing (Vilene G700/Pellon SF101) and some white cotton sheeting.

I attached the photo to the navy ticking effect cotton with some red ric-rac trim. Then I added some more applique bunting using Bondaweb/Wonderunder with free motion machine embroidery, just like the seagull cushion. I asked for the actual date the photo was taken, and added it to the pennants with more free motion machine embroidery.

Then instead of adding a poem, I asked for all the kids signature's. They are all three years older now, and could mostly produce a rough autograph with a little help! I used my printer to adjust the sizes so they were all roughly the same size, and traced them onto the fabric using my light box and a Frixion pen. I hand-embroidered them using perle #5 thread in the same bright colours as the bunting. I used backstitch, stem stitch and split stitch.

Here it is with the cushion completed. I think it would have worked better if I had put the signatures on scraps of plain fabric, as they don't show up as well on the stripes.