Feather Pillow

I finally figured out what to do with my pieced feathers. I did what I originally planned to do, make a pillow. This one went to my other sister in law. She's spunky so I figured she would like something with some pizzaz. 

 I tried to quilt the feathers with silver thread but it kept breaking so I settled for purple thread.

Check out this invisible zipper. The first one I accidentally broke/melted so this one is white. Only the pull showed though so I am quite impressed with myself. I tried to paint it with dark nail polish so it wouldn't show, but that did not work. So alas, the white zipper pull it is.  

Since Danielle lives in Las Vegas and has to travel with all of her presents I just gave this to her unstuffed with a $5 bill inside so she can buy stuffing when she gets home. I'm so dang smart, how does my brain not explode?

Lauren.

Works in Progress

In my cleaning/organizing/painting I stumbled upon some unfinished projects. They're unfinished because I don't know exactly what to do with them. Maybe you have some ideas?

The first one is four feathers from Anna Maria Horners new pattern for The Feather Bed Quilt. 

I love how they turned out. I was planning on making one pillow, but I messed up the pattern and ended up having enough fabric to make four feathers instead of two. Then when I pieced them all together I realized that each quilt square was much bigger than a typical throw pillow. Now I am not sure what to do with them. My co-worker told me I should make a wall hanging. I like that idea. I just can't figure out if I should make all of the feathers go the same way (photo on left) or have the feathers flipped (right photo). Any thoughts? Bueller? Bueller?

The next project was something I got an inspiration for from Pinterest, here is the original link. I used left over fabric from the apron I made my friend Jill for her bridal shower. The link had a printable pattern, but when I printed it it was too small, and rather than figure out how to print it bigger I just winged it. Sounds like a me thing to do right?

The whole reason I did this was because I had saved some selvage and really liked the rainbow colored  dots. They look a lot like the settings on a Kitchen Aid mixer. This picture shows an up close of the dots, and also the amount of pieces I used to make the entire thing.

After I finished the mixer I made  two small log cabin squares. I was thinking of making a wall hanging for a kitchen, but then I thought to myself "who has a wall hanging in a kitchen? Sounds like a fire hazard to me." Sometimes I shouldn't listen to myself because after that inner convo I put this project in a drawer and forgot about it. What do you think? Do people have wall hangings in their kitchen? Would you want it?

Please give me your feedback so these projects don't get stuffed back into the closet or a drawer.

Lauren

New Pillows

Here is a long story for you. Are you ready? Okay...so before Christmas Charlie and I went to a party at our friends new house in Maine. We took mostly back roads to get there and on the way home the next day we got stuck behind a car going very slow and carrying a Christmas tree on top. As we got closer we noticed that the tree was on top of a large piece of fabric to prevent the tree from scratching the car. Upon further inspection we realized that the piece of fabric was in fact a duvet cover, and the same one we had on our bed at home. This prompted us to think about how long we had actually been using the duvet cover....our answer was too long. If someone driving a 1995 Honda Civic felt the need to protect the top of their car from Christmas tree damage with the same duvet cover that we were using on our bed we decided we should probably look for a new one. 

Fast forward to last weekend when we were at the L.L Bean outlet in Concord. In the discount bedding section we found a navy blue duvet cover for way less than full price and I had a gift card, Score! Before we checked out Charlie said; "Are you sure you want something this dark?" I  assured him I did, whilst thinking about how to girl it up (i.e. Throw Pillows!!)

The first one I made is the Sprocket Pillow. I'd been eyeing it for quite a while and knew right away that this would be my chance to make it. The Tutorial (HERE) was super easy to follow. I did make one change, the pattern/directions calls for sewing a strip between the two circles, I skipped that step to make the pillow flatter, and because I didn't have enough batting to fill up a pillow that big.

My points didn't exactly match up but it's okay because the large button does a great job of hiding that. 

I finished it moments before Charlie got home from school and we had to laugh because he coordinated perfectly with the color scheme of the pillow.

The second pillow was a bit trickier. I wanted to do something gathered but I kept screwing it up so I went to the old standby, the pintuck pillow. I sewed one in the short lived "sewing club" a few years ago and I knew I liked the look so I went with it.

Close up of the pin tucks.

Here's a look at the entire whole bed. The new navy blue duvet cover goes great with this quilt, the one that inspired me to start blogging. 

And it is officially 8:30 on Saturday, after a long day of exercise class, ice skating, baking, and believe it or not,  grocery shopping I am very tried and off to bed. We're hitting the slopes tomorrow and I've got to get my snow bunny beauty sleep.

Lauren