Pillow Project

Now that I've gotten somewhat settled in, I'm beginning to think of projects that will fill my days while CountryBoy is at work.  (I have twelve hours to fill!)

The project that needed the most attention was our couch pillows.  They were looking pretty rough...

That was the worst one but you can see that they've all been repaired at some time...

Having this project in mind, I stopped at Joann's while I was in town the other day.  I took a pillow with me so I could figure out how much material I needed and so that I could try to match that color of blue/teal, or whatever color it is!

The pattern of the couch material and various colors in it were making the decision a bit more difficult.  I didn't want the pillow to compete or clash with the couch colors and pattern.  After finding several possible choices, but none that said 'I'm it!', I decided to go with a more neutral color to try and get away from so much of this color in the 5th wheel.

Here's what I chose...

A velvety soft, tan color with a raised leaf pattern on it.

The best part?  It was 60% off the original price!  That's right!  Walmart wanted almost $14.00 per pillow and here I recovered three of them for less than $30.00 and another best part?  The satisfaction of doing it myself!

I guessed at how many yards I needed (I still need to learn how to figure that out) and got one and a half yards.

See that white pen in the above photo?  Best invention ever!  It's a chalk pen for marking your material.  A neighbor of mine back in Florida is an avid quilter and I saw her use this pen to mark her material and fell in love with it!  It's refillable and does a fantastic job of easily marking your material.  Just an FYI if you're a quilter or like to sew.

Since I wasn't quite sure what I was doing, I decided to measure and cut material for one pillow, sew it together and see if it worked before attempting the others.

How 'bout the view from my sewing table?

Birds sitting in the tree, swarming the feeder and foraging on the ground with mountains in the background!

Note:  the completely filled bird feeder on a daily basis lasts about two hours.  Am I feeding pigs?!

The first pillow worked out perfectly.  That is until I tried to finish the pillow after stuffing it.

I started to whip stitch the open seam together but it was looking horrible.

Time to google it.  (What did we ever do before we were able to google something?!)  I found a really great video on You Tube that explained the Ladder Stitch for closing seams on stuffed toys or pillows.  I'm thankful so many people have willingly put these types of videos out there.  (They've come in handy for questions about crochet stitches as well.)

I finished the first pillow and was very pleased with it (you have to look hard to find the seam that was hand stitched!) so it was time to knock the rest of them out. 

After cutting out the fabric for the second pillow, I realized that I did not have enough material to make the third without piecing it together.

Rather than waiting to buy more, I figured out how to piece it together and it turned out OK.  I can live with it.

Here they are all finished...

I'm happy with how they turned out and I'm liking the more neutral color...

Next project?  Trying to figure out why Photoshop Elements is telling me that I've already activated the software on two computers.  Yes, I know that, but it has always been on this laptop.  The only thing that has changed is the location of the laptop and internet providers.

And, of course, there are no phone numbers to call and no obvious way online that will help resolve this issue.  

I have 13 days to figure this out, sigh.  If not, then I'm guessing that I can no longer use PSE.

I think they want me to buy a newer version.  Not gonna happen!

Again, my love/hate relationship with technology.

If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears!

What are you working on this winter?

Till next time,