Adventures in Sewing: Pillows

I recently got some new couches... did I mention that I LOVE them? I just didn't especially love the fabric selections the company offered for pillows. So I ordered plain ones that match the fabric of the couches and set myself to the task of making some of my own.

After hitting up Jo-Ann Fabrics (with a coupon of course!) I found home decor fabric (heavier than cotton) that coordinated nicely with the new rug that I purchased. I then measured the pillows that came with my couches, to see what the dimensions of my homemade pillows needed to be. Turns out they needed to be 20"x 20".

In order to get my finished pillows to come out to a whopping 20" x 20", I needed to add a quarter of an inch to each of the sides in order to account for a seam allowance. I traced this out on a piece of tissue paper, so that I could make a pattern. I then laid out the pattern and the fabric and cut out 8 pieces (this is so I could make a total of 4 pillows). To stiffen up my pillows, I also cut out 8 pieces of fleece interfacing.



I put the pillow fabric right sides together and then placed the fleece interfacing on the outside of that.



I then stitched around the edges using a 1/4" seam allowance, and leaving a 4" gap on one side so that I could turn it right side out for stuffing.



To make the seams lay more smoothly, I trimmed close to the seams and clipped the corners.




I then turned the pillows right side out and pushed the corners out to make them look more crisp. Then I repurposed fiber-fill from some old pillows that my mom no longer wanted. Once the pillows were stuffed, I hand stitched them shut, which resulted in this!

Trash to Treasure: Table

One of my favorite hobbies is to go thrift shopping (thank you Macklemore for making it cool again!).

When I was at Goodwill a while back I scored this gem for 7.99. It was a little worse for the wear, as it was missing its drawer-see the gaping hole?



Side note: My parents are all-stars for many reasons.

Example 1: See the board sitting on top of the table? They cut that down for me (read: I'm a giant chicken when it comes to power tools).

This is about the point where my documentation of this project fell apart, so please bear with my verbal description of what I did to that lovely table.

First, I sanded down the surface of the yellow table and the board, as there were a few spots that had paint drips. Once I had it sanded, I wiped it down with a damp rag **This step is so, so important, so that you don't seal in the dust!

I then went to Home Depot and got a few cans of their cheap-o, but still does the trick, flat black spray paint for $0.98 a can. 3 cans later, I had the whole table coated in black. Mom and I then tag teamed the adding of the board... it required more of my favorite things...power tools- thanks, mom :)

After that I went to Anthropologie and picked out a drawer pull, so that I could make the board that we added look like a faux drawer. The pull was the same price as the table, so the whole project cost me around $19, which is a WHOLE lot better than what a similar table would have cost me brand new- plus I was able to personalize it with the adorable pull :)