The “I Love Holland”-cushion

The first grandchild/niece/cousin on my husband’s side of the family is getting married. She was born in The Netherlands, but moved to Canada when she was 8 or 9 years old. Unfortunately we do not see her and the rest of her lovely family a lot, but luckily there’s social media! Thanks to Facebook and the like, we’re able to connect and share parts (photos) of our lives on a regular basis.

Marriage is an important step in your life and calls for a special gift, a gift from the heart in my humble opinion. Happy me, another reason to start crocheting something nice.
Not knowing any colors or style that she and her husband-to-be have decorated their home with, made it a bit hard to decide on this.
However, when my mother in law said one of the presents our niece had suggested to her, was a cheese slicer (“kaasschaaf”), a typical Dutch kitchen tool to – you get it – make slicing cheese easier, the link to a “Dutch” present was made in my crochet-brain.
The “I Love Holland”-cushion plan was born, thinking and hoping it would be a little reminder to both her and her husband of her Dutch roots.
Nów picking colors was easy: “Dutch” colors – red, white and blue as referral to our national flag. Orange referring to our royal family and it also being the color that unites all Dutch in fun, national holidays (e.g. Kingsday, World Soccer Games etc.).

The pretty granny circle was crocheted following the lovely Cherry Heart‘s tutorial. Joining my “Holland-circles” I used the continuous-join-as-you-go-technique. While doing so, I first thought of a border in orange pompoms (you know how I LOVE pompoms …..), but browsing my pinterest board – actually for something else – I stumbled upon this pin: the gorgeous, gorgeous border design by Dragana Savkov (blog here).
I immediately felt thís was the perfect border for my cushion and seeing how it worked out, I’m soooo happy that I went for this beautiful design!

For the back I used two fabrics from my stash that had a “Dutch” feel, made an envelope-style cover onto which I sewed the crocheted front and prettied up the back with a separately crocheted trim in the same style as my border.
I can only conclude that I really LOVE my “I love Holland”-cushion and so hope our sweet niece will too …..

Love,
Marianne