It About Drove Me "Batting"

Alas, I can say that my sofa pillows are done! Of course, it wasn't without a few glitches. Remember whose blog you're reading.

I wanted to make some throw pillows for the couch in the same toile fabric that my living room curtains and kitchen shades are made out of. So, I bought this beautiful silk cording to pipe them with. I measured and then added extra "just because". Just because I'm still a sewing newbie and didn't want to take any chances. I realized once I got making the first pillow that my gorgeous piping was a pain in the patootie to work with because once you cut the stuff it wanted to untwist itself about an inch at each end. Thank God, I figured out how to make it work and the pillow was finished beautifully. Well, at least by my 'not shooting for perfection' standard, anyhow.

On to pillow #2. Yay! Or so I thought. Evidently, when you sew cording on a pillow it scrunches itself up and you use more than you apparently measured for. "How do you know this, Pam?" I'm glad you asked. Take a look.


AAAAAAAHHHHHH! I scream. Yes, this would happen to me. Thank God I married a man who likes to come up with solutions to problems, because I sure as heck didn't want to take my stitch ripper and begin the extremely tedious job of taking all of that blasted beautiful cording off and then have to wait to finish this pillow that I am finally motivated to make until I have the time to drive the 40 minutes it takes me to get to the fabric store. Whew! Was that a run-on sentence, or what? MW asked if there was any way that I could just pull the two ends together and make it work. So, I pleated it. It's at the bottom of the pillow and no one is going to know about it (except you). Remember, I wasn't shooting for perfection. I think they look pretty darn good sitting on my couch, though.

While I was at JoAnn Fabric on Friday I found a remnant of black and white gingham material on clearance for $.50. It was only 14" long, but I figured I could probably squeeze a couple of smallish pillows out of it. I also found a pack of 32 iron-on numbers on clearance for $.50 while I was there. Maybe I can get the two clearance items to work together?

Maybe not. I couldn't get the iron-on to stay down, hard as I tried. And, believe me, I tried. You should have seen me trying to peel evey last bit of black number off of my pillow cases.

On to plan #2. The gingham really needed something. I didn't bother to even make cording for these pillows because they were going to be a really quick project. Yeah, right. I found a lady bug stamp in my stash and some red fabric paint. Maybe a little red lady bug in the corner?
Maybe not. It kind of got lost in all the gingham.

Third time was a charm. I ended up pulling some white felt out of my fabric and sketching a fat, little bird to cut out of the felt. I applied them over the little lady bugs with Fabri Tac and gave them each a little red eye with a needle and thread. They're not alcoholic birds, they're albino. Plus, they match my house that way. I had an albino dog once. Not that you care. I'm just sayin'.

Anyhoo, I'm done making pillows for a while. Gee, it only took me days and about drove me "batting" (Sorry, couldn't resist the corny humor.), but they are done. Finished. Finito. (Is that even a word?) I'm not sure if their home will be the couch:
or the chairs. What do you think?
Now, I'm ready to start on my project for the burlap party.

Have a great "Hump Day"!