It takes Allsorts

Really sweet

I was lucky enough to stumble upon* a huge collection of Sunday Times Magazines from the early 1970s at the weekend, and if it hadn't felt like a sauna in the shop, I'd have gladly loitered around and looked through the lot. As it was, I only sweatily flicked through a few choice issues with good covers. I must go back!

70s Lady Macbeth

Nevertheless, this Sunday colour supplement was so good design-wise in those days that after a mere moment's leafing through the 28 February 1971 edition, I was feasting my eyes on Big Deal, a brilliant feature on Pop Art-style furniture...

You don't have to wear black to use this furniture but it helps

As well as the false-teeth sofa, giant hand chair and industrial-sized fruit cushions, overleaf there was a kiddies' sofa in the shape of a pile of super-duper kingsize ciggies...

Fag mountain

a massive telephone chair...

The antithesis of the mobile phone

... and the pièce de résistance, a sneakers sofa:

Elton John must have been missing a pair of plimsolls

All this reminded me that somewhere I had a pattern for knitted Liquorice Allsorts cushions... and after a bit of a rummage, I found it in the A-Z Colour Guide to Homemaking Crafts by Marie Katherine Burne-Jones (Published by Langham Press 1983).

This is them:

That's a toddler's hand on top, to give you an idea of scale

OK so I know XXXXL sneakers or false teeth would have been even better... but this is close enough to Big Deal-style Pop Art furniture, non? Click here and here for your free giant Liquorice Allsorts knitting pattern.

*thanks to eagle-eyed Rich for spotting the pile of mags on the floor