Pillow Talk

On this nice holiday weekend of ours, the Mr. worked and I was left alone at home.  Yep, just me, the pup, and my sewing machine.  I had a few Jo-Ann coupons burning a whole in my pocket since I realized my new found love for sewing, so I hopped in the car and headed on over to fabric heaven.  With sights of Waverly, Nautica, and Croscill (oh my!), I was in my happy place.  Alright, time to get down to business.  Remember my living room moodboard?  Ahh, there she is!

While we still have a lo-oong way to go, and I haven't stuck exactly to plan (take the rug for example), we've definitely made some headway!

BEFORE:

PROGRESS:

 

Don't worry, I've been working on filling up those frames and I hope to share that with you soon!  So while I was scouring the miles of aisles of fabric making sure to keep my moodboard in mind, I came across some beauties.  One being  the Waverly Bedazzle Silver Linning:

The pattern, the colors--everything is right about this fabric for my room and I'm thinking it may just make the perfect curtains.  But at $22.49/yard (on sale from $44.99/yd!), I sadly left my jewel behind.  I have a coupon that starts tomorrow, so I may scoop this up then!  After an hour of finding fabrics that would work in the room, then matching them with other fabrics to see how they all look together, and keeping my budget in mind, I found a few winners and they made it home with me!  Oh, I forgot to mention I may have picked up a few pillow inserts as well!  Here's my loot!

 

I love the way the floral fabric ties in all of the colors I'm wanting to use in the space-grey, yellow, blue, and my sage and bright greens!  The other two fabrics pull a couple of those colors out, while I'm hoping to use that Waverly Bedazzle Silver Linning to be the icing on the cake!  Time to get to work! 

I woke up bright and early to get started on my pillow throw down (I think I've been watching too much Bobby Flay) and had my little workstation ready to go!  I used the same instructions I told you about here and got busy!  Notice I bought myself a little starter Singer sewing kit for $9.99 so I no longer have to bust out the construction tape measure or kitchen shears!  Woohoo!  Five pillows, 2 cups of coffee, and a  few chocolate chip cookie later I stared in amazement.

I'm diggin' the color these puppies add to an otherwise pretty neutral room and loving the way the green pops and really pulls everything together.  Especially the green in the photos above the sofa!  I'm so glad we switched them out from those black and white pictures!

 And here's me trying to get fancy with my camera:

 

Whew, it once again took me longer than the estimated "5 Minute Pillow Cover" tutorial said it would, but I definitely noticed some improvement!  Now if only I had some curtains to really tie it all together...

Say It Ain't Sew

That's right y'all...I finally put my Kenmore sewing machine to use!  And  when it was all said and done, I was smiling like a kid on Christmas!  I won't give a "how-to" because I know I wasn't all that at all technically savvy with my machine, but I'll show you a few milestones along the way!  First stop, Joann's; where I bought 3 yards of fabric thinking it would only make two pillow covers when it will probably make at least five!

Definitely made me feel better about making them rather than paying $20-30 per pillow (or pillow cover if you check my favorite places to shop like West Elm or Etsy).  While I was there, I picked up some thread, bobbins, and pillow inserts--duh!  Time to try this bad boy out!

My first task:  to thread my bobbin.  I'm not gonna lie, I had to Google it.  And then, I had to YouTube it.  That's right, I had to learn to thread my bobbin from a YouTube video.  Why oh WHY did I not pay more attention in Home Ec?  The point is, I got it threaded and here is my glorious achievement: 

 

Next on the list, thread the needle.  This was surprisingly easy since my machine had the task completely numbered with diagrams.  Whew!  That was a lifesaver.  However, I still felt the need to take a picture of accomplishment #2: 

Now that my machine is loaded and ready to use, I feel comfortable going ahead and cutting my fabric (after I washed and dried it to preshrink it!).  I used this amazing tutorial to come up with my measurements!  And yes, that's a tape measure next to me.  And I'm cutting my fabric with kitchen shears.  I have no fancy-schmancy equipment for sewing since this is my first stab at it. So, I use what I've got because that's how I roll!  I usually try to wait about a month to see if my new interest will be an ongoing interest before I invest in anything other than the necessities.  It saves me lots of moo-la from not buying stuff for hobbies that barely make it out of the gate!

 After I cut my fabric, I followed those handy-dandy instructions on the tutorial and sewed my first seam.  That's right...I sewed a straight line!

 It only got better from there and I ended up with a pillow cover.  Yep, I sure did.  And I don't know that my smile could have gotten any bigger.  The mister thought I had had a few too many when I came into the living room, holding my pillow like a prized possession.  But I've never been so proud!  And here was my mess to show how hard I'd worked:

Notice it was daylight when I started and the sun is now completely gone at the finish line!  Needless to say, my stresses and couple of hours worth of work to make a pillow using a "How to Sew a 5-Minute Pillow Cover" paid off and I'm hoping to cut the next pillow project down to 30 minutes.

That's a good lookin' pillow, if I do say so myself.  Now that I'm confident in my new-found sewing abilities, I'm off to buy more fabric and can't wait to show y'all my baby-step sewing accomplishments!