Icelandic Narwhal Cushion

Since my beloved is a big fan of Iceland and narwhals, I decided to combine the two and make a cushion cover for his favorite cushion with an embroidered pattern featuring Icelandic embroidery and narwhals.

The pattern comes from the book Traditional Icelandic Embroidery by Elsa E. Gudjónsson. However, I did not use wool, rather, I shopped my stash and used 25-count linen and stranded cotton thread.

The pattern had peacocks, which were replaced with narwhals (besides, how Icelandic are peacocks?)

I used the long arm cross stitch or gamli krosssaumurinn. I followed the tutorial in the Piecework Magazine article by Justin Allan-Spencer (February 2020.)

Once the embroidery was finished, I used an old shirt and a left over piece from a bed cover to make the rest of the cushion cover. I even made piping! I originally wanted to put an invisible zipper but realized that it was too small for the cushion, so I ripped it out and put in buttons instead.

I learned a lot, specially the sewing skills required to make the cushion cover.

And like they say in Iceland, bless bless!