Saturday, February 5, 2011

Friday pillow love

Can I please tell you how much I love muslin?  I just do.  It's so stinkin easy to sew with!  Love.  And I love the way stitching looks on it, like this:
back side of quilted hearts
I mean really, it's just so neat looking. Please ignore the little snarl of red over there, ummm, what can I say?
So, I regularly check out One Pretty Thing, there are TONS of ideas every single day and I am constantly inspired but everyone out there's creativity.  So last week, who knows what day? I was checking it out and saw this super cute table runner for Valentine's day.  I thought, I'd love to make that!  But, well then it morphed into a pillow case!  I've had this cute tapestry Thanksgiving pillow that I drag out every Fall and yesterday I suddenly realized that I could just cover it and use it every season if I'd like!  Der. 
Yes, I had errands to run but frankly I could. not. stop. sewing!  Eh.  Errands can wait.  So, here it is prior to stuffing the pillow inside:
quilted heart pillow
And here we go with the pillow:
quilted heart pillow
I had to take a close up of this little heart here because I love this fabric but only have like a scrap 3 inches wide X 20 or so inches. It was in the scrap bin at the quilt shop and I snapped it up but could not find yardage anywhere at all.
heart
Super cute, right?
Okay, so during the week I had the urge to try out the dresden quilt pattern in my Material Obsession book (thanks Mom!).  So, rememeber the fairy tale table runner?  Originally I was thinking of making all pretty pinks and rosy prints and such, but I really think projects have a mind of their own!  Because this is what turned out:
dresden plate pillow
I have to say that it was really quite easy.  I was not expecting easy.  The only thing I didn't do correctly was the center circle, I cut it out too small so I really didn't have any wiggle mistake room there.  Can I please tell you how incredibly hard it was to cut out that much of that fabric!!!!!  Seriously, I am so stingy with it since I have less than a fat quarter left and really the point is to fussy cut with it because who cares about the plain colored part, right?  So, it hurt a little to cut that much knowing I've now limited the rest of the piece.  Anyways, my neurosis aside, it turned out cute, huh?  All fabrics from my stash, all fabrics I love.
In other news, I broke down and bought some size 3 metal double pointed needles!  I mentioned before that I'm knitting a monster, and I do have plastic needles picked up at the thrift for like .50 cents, but dang!  They were like pulling teeth to knit with, for crying in a bucket!  The yarn really sticks to the plastic and with such a tight gauge they would practically squeak!  I'm happy to say that the metal needles are much better!  I have to admit that I feel a little guilty buying them when I have the others, like I'm being disloyal to the vintage needles or something.  I know that's a little crazy.
Oh, my gosh!  I just entered a pillow contest @ Stitched in Color!  Eeeek.  Not that I think I'm going to win or anything, but there is a fabulous prize (of fabric!) if you do, so why not enter?!  Oh man, why did I do that?
Blogger's Pillow Party

6 comments:

Teje said...

Hello! Your pillows are wonderful! Especially now I love the heart one! Great idea to add the hearts just over the fabric!
I go to see if I can find your dogs...
Sunny wishes from Crete! Teje and Nero

Mary Jo said...

I LOVE your heart pillow! So creative and beautiful!

Wendy said...

Oh how pretty! Was the second one really easy? It doesn't look it! I love your hearts pillow, what a great way of using scraps of pretty fabrics.

Rachel at Stitched in Color said...

I'm glad you entered. The heart pillow is ADORABLE. Nice to meet you!

Aunt Spicy said...

Ohhhhh, so adore the hearts! What a great pillow!

Ruby Star said...

Nice work, i really like your heart pillow. feb is the perfect month to enter this for the pillow party. x