A new cushion

Urged on by a friend, today I went to a class at Handmade 2012. I didn't quite see the point of making a pincushion out of a bottle top - still, chacune (I didn't see any men there) à son goût, and there were several other things I would have liked to try. But at $45 each, the classes weren't cheap, so I settled for A Cushy Job, which promised to teach me how to make a cushion properly, using an invisible zip. I've been making cushions (sporadically) for years, but I've never learnt how to do it properly - instead I've resorted to just sewing them up by hand on one side, knowing that if I ever needed to get the cover off, I'd have to unpick it. And I already had some fabric - I'd bought it well over a year ago to cover a giant cushion (for lying back on the sofa while watching TV), but had never got round to using it.
           I had a great time. Before the class started I had a lovely conversation with the young man (well, he looked young to me, though he had an eight-year-old daughter) in charge of the sewing machines - he told me he owns and uses five of them at home, from basic to very, very advanced. The machines were Brothers, reminding me strongly of my mother, who loved her Brother - she would have been thrilled to see how easy they are to use now.
           Our teacher, Jenny Deonarain, knew her stuff and was good at explaining it to us. Best of all, she gave us a neat little booklet of step-by-step instructions and photos, so we could do it all again when we got home. I didn't manage to finish sewing up the sides of my giant cushion in class, but I got the zip in - not perfectly invisible, but pretty good all the same. I'll put up a photo when I've finished it.
            The whole thing reminded me how much I enjoy learning to do something new, especially something like this that involves messing happily around with cloth and thread (a complete change from what I usually spend my time doing, which is working with words in some way). I must do more of it.