Pillow Talk

there are feathers littering my living and family rooms. feathers are pretty good fun for little girls. they are a favorite with all three of mine, ages 1 to 4. there's all kinds of things you can do with them: blow them up in the air, tickle each other, pretend we're dumbo and flying, eating them...(the one year old. hey, if it's on the ground, it goes in the mouth. luckily, they don't go down easy and she spits them back out pretty quickly). my oldest even collects them with the intention of building a bird, i think. it's a pretty versatile item! unfortunately, what they can not seem to do...is disappear. really, do i want these little things all over the floors? every time i vacuum, i feel like i've finally gotten them all. then i look in the room a few minutes later, and there's more!

these entertaining little buggers are from a couple of old throw pillows that a former coworker gave me. they are rather ugly and, obviously, a bit worse for the wear, so i have been letting the girls have their way with them (hence the constant flux of feathers). however, i have lately been looking for a love seat to put in my living room. the ones i've been considering do not come with accent pillows. my designer friend has recommended that i get some to add more color to my room. well, i don't know if you've ever looked at pillows in stores, but a 2x2 pillow is easily $15, and i need 2 to 4 of them. that's at least $30 to $60, quite possibly more! for pillows! why? all they are is a couple squares of fabric sewn together and stuffed with fluff! true, i don't really sew, but how hard could it be? it's just a few straight lines. i can totally do that, and it won't cost me $15 a pillow!

the plan:
i would simply recover the existing feather emitting pillows. in fact, i have two other accent pillow that came with my couch that i wouldn't mind seeing in different clothes, too. observe the contenders:

so i headed out to Hobby Lobby to look at fabric. because i am "all things craft impaired", i took one of each pillow with me to have the professionals measure and tell me how much fabric i needed. i can only assume that there are others out there like me, because they did so without blinking an eye. so after puzzling over style, print, texture, and design, i finally settled on these:



already, i think i'm ahead. the fabric only cost me $16 for all four pillows.

so here's something i learned that people don't tend to tell you in online tutorials: pre-wash your fabric before you start cutting and sewing. apparently shrinking could be an issue.

on with the show.

now that i had the fabric, i began having delusions of grandeur. that's the problem with the "how hard could it be" mentality. a few small successes can easily go to your head and start making you feel a bit big for your britches. with fabric in hand, in the middle of a craft store, i made some grand plans and started - gasp - designing. at first, it was only in my head. but later, i actually drew some pictures, making a very amateurish pattern (i drew a square and a few lines...and not to scale...or even straight lines. all in all, i think only cavemen would be impressed, and only because i used a pen rather than a rock on stone). i remembered seeing this post on making a baby blanket and thought "hey, that would be kind of cool to simplify and use for my pillows". i would make two layers on the front, then cut the top layer in strips so the bottom layer could "peek" out. simple. i mean, there it was right there, showing me how to do it. on a diy blog. so i could diy it, right? well, the big difference between myself and the author of that blog is: she know what she's doing. i, conversely, do not.

but i do have the secret to diy projects for we less-craft-capable people: friends.

so i exchanged babysitting services for help with sewing from a friend who has some nifty tools that made this job a lot easier: a cutting mat, rotary cutter, and a clear gridded ruler. she also had another good tip when it comes to sewing: never sew TOWARD a seam. it can cause "bunching". and also, for pillows like these, leave the opening on a side, not a corner.

so my friend made sure my squares were cut evenly and even drew the diagonal lines for me to sew on (definitely do this. almost impossible for less experienced crafters to do it otherwise).














then i pinned the two layers together, and sewed on the lines.


















next, i cut the top layer between the newly sewn seams (i couldn't decide which to make the top and which to make the bottom, so i did one of each). simple. quickly stitched the back to the front and came up with this:



i tossed them into the wash to get a more textured effect.

now, if you look too closely, you can still see the pattern of the pillows through the new fabric on the back. i figure you can either go back and add another layer to it, or slip some batting in.


then i used some liquid stitch to seal up the side.




the other two; the ones that started it all; the molting ones that have given me carpal tunnel syndrome from constant vacuuming...well, they would be much easier. my friend with the cool toys cut them for me again and all i had to do was sew a few straight lines and liquid stitch them.


and voila! my new pillows!


bottom line: this was a relatively easy project. all you need is a sewing machine (whether you really know how to use it or not), some fabric, and time. i won't lie to you, i did this over a few days. if you don't have young children and a house to clean, meals to cook, and errands to run, you can probably get it done a lot faster. you can get exactly the colors and style you want and save yourself a bundle. a definite DO for any skill level.