A Surprise for a friend

June 2008


Well it looks like we have a sewing circle starting here….if you can call three a stitching circle!

Back in April Nicki, Sharon and I thought we would stitch another project for someone that we knew and we couldn’t think of anyone more deserving than our friend Hazel.

We all became cyber friends on the Craft’s By Carolyn’s forum and have even managed to meet up a couple of times at various get togethers.  I have to say that Hazel is one of the loveliest people I’ve ever met and you might know her as Crafty Hazelnut in blogland as she’s always joining in with WOYWW and taking part in lots of card making challenges.



Earlier in the year I had been looking at Hazel’s blog and had read there that her husband’s guide dog  Josey had to be returned to the Guide Dog association because  John had been quite ill recently and was no longer using her enough to warrant keeping her.
Although she was really classed as a working dog she was still a pet to them and part of their family, so how Hazel and John coped with handing her back I will never know.
It made me feel so sad to read about it all that I thought it would be nice to try and do something to cheer the two of them up a bit, so I spoke to Sharon and Nicki they both agreed it would be wonderful to make something for them.

We had loads of discussions on the designs for the panels as well as the verses we were going to put on each cushion and then we finally got down to some stitching, Sharon doing the panel for John and myself doing Hazels.

Hazel’s Panel – stitched by me

John’s Panel – stitched by Sharon

And the verse on John's cushion is the words to All things bright and beautiful.

When we had finished the stitching the panels were sent out to Nicki and she made them up for us, even taking into account how with John’s failing eyesight he was going to be able tell which of the cushions was his. 

She came up with the great solution of edging Hazel’s cushion with piping and adding four small flowers to the corners and on John’s she used fringing around the edge and added buttons to the corners……….problem solved!


Finished cushions made up by Nicki