Primary Pillows

Completely unrelated to artist trading cards, I finished a new project!
 

 

 

I've had 4 pillow forms sitting around for two or two and a half years. Originally I was going to make pillows for my living room, but I never got around to it because my mom encouraged me to try a zipper. I have nothing wrong with zippers, but any time I sew more than a straight line, I'm impressed with myself. So I thought I'd screw up. The pillow forms sat and sat and moved apartments with me.

 

I'm moving in 4 months, though, so I'm trying to finish up whatever projects are sitting around so I don't move as much. I'm not totally sure this is sound logic, but it's what I'm going with for now. And the person I'm moving in with already has very nice throw pillows for the living room.

 

Last July I realized I wasn't going to make the original pillows, but I had an idea to make primary colored pillows that said READ. I thought I'd put them in my library. So the project sat around, again, until just last week. I decided it was time to make the pillows.

 

I was going to use fat quarters for the fabric. Then I had a dream last Thursday night that I should use t-shirts. When I went to the store for my material, the fat quarters were going to be $20 while the t-shirt idea was about $13. The shirts were on sale 4/$10 and then I bought the fancy felt.

 

I won't bore you with too much detail of the process, but I'll highlight a few parts:

 

 

 
I used the bottom hem of the shirt as the side I'd hand sew. I'm sure there's a technical term for what I did, but basically I sewed the bottom seam as a hidden seam by sewing on the inside layer of the hem. From the outside, it just looks finished. I'm really proud of that part. It took several hours.

I also learned and used the buttonhole stitch for final letter attachment. My mom came to my rescue and suggested I first glue the letters down. I used tacky glue. Then I did what she suggested and did a buttonhole stitch to really affix the letter.

I'd already sewn the pillow shut, so I had to be extra careful I only sewed the felt and jersey without getting the pillow form. It also took hours, but I finished it last night.

I'm giving a special thanks to my friend Jessica who actually drew my letters. I gave her the material, a pencil and paper, told her what it would say, that I wanted it all in caps, and let her figure out what the letters would look like.

 
 
 These pillows are so much fun. I'm really excited they're done and totally useable.

And you can connect the "read" to leaves by way of books. It's not perfect science, right?