Pillow Making Corners Square or Round?

I was of the mind that a good pillow should have round corners. I wasn't sure I liked that square corner dog eared look. So I set out to make a round corner pillow.

So I decided that a glass would be a good size for me to use as an outline for that rounded corner look. I traced the corner using the glass so I'd know where to sew.  I don't have any pictures of the sewn line but what I do have is a rounded corner pillow and a square corner pillow side by side so you can judge like I did which look is better.

Need I tell you that the round corner one is in front, you could tell that right? It was a great experiment and the square corner won. Now to get that sharp corner edge I make sure I sew each side to the edge and not try to move the fabric to turn a corner. I'm hoping you can tell what I mean by the following picture.



So each seam went right to the end, cut the threads and then began the next seam at the edge. It gives me really sharp edges.

 I make sure I cut the corners off so when it's turned right side the corners look nice and crisp.

Here's a set of pillows I did all with the square edges and now I have to say I like the bit of a dog eared look.

I'm partying over here 

The Cottage Market

 Sew Crafty Angel

I'm In Love With My Ruffle Attachment For My Sewing Machine.

I always knew I like to sew but once I tried my new ruffle attachment LIKE turned to LOVE. Really, how come I never knew about this wonderful tool?

I went to my local sewing store and they weren't too sure on what type of foot I needed either a low shank or high shank foot, well neither did I.  I then strolled over to Ebay and came upon "Gone Sewin" Ebay store and there she was....... my ruffler.  Gone Sewin listed my Kenmore model number and I knew then it was a fit.

Gone Sewin says about this ruffler

"For sewing small pleats and gathering on a single layer of fabric, as well as
pleated ruffles. The ruffler is adjustable and becomes indispensable when the
amount of gathering needs to be controlled exactly. You can control both the depth
of each pleat and the distance between pleats. It is particularly useful when long
rows of gathering are required such as in Home Dec projects. You can gather or pleat
a single layer of fabric while attaching it to a straight, ungathered layer in one operation. Recommended for light to medium weight fabrics."

So once I started on using the ruffler I just couldn't stop. It was almost magical!

So here are some pictures of pillows I enhanced with ruffles. 

This one I did in the envelope style and just because....... I added the ruffle.

Okay this red and white check are actually two fabric napkins sandwiched together with...... you guessed it some ruffles. 

I went ruffle crazy by adding one ruffle on top of the other mixing different colors.  I'm doing a happy camper dance. 

More things are in the works for me and my ruffler. It's a marriage made in heaven I'm thinking. Okay I'm off to do...... bet you can't guess!  

BTW I've not been paid to endorse this ebay store.

 I'm linking up at these parties

Vintage Inspiration Friday at Common Ground

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage

Fridays Unfolded at Stuff and Nonsense 

Inspiration Fridays At The Picket Fence

Men's Shirt Pillows

A few days ago I showed you how to deconstruct a man's shirt and you can see that tutorial here. Now lets get to the pillow making.

First off let me tell you what I've learned from trial and error. It's best to buy a man's extra large shirt. If the shirt goes by neck size I would go no lower than a 17" neck.  This way when you cut off the sleeves and collar you have enough of the front to make a large pillow that places the pocket in a good place.  Second when placing your pattern onto the front keep the cutting and sewing lines away from the buttons. If you can't do that then you'll need to remove that button


Okay so now decide on the size of the pillow you want. I opted to buy  pillow forms, just because I think its neater looking and also because I wasn't sewing closed the button area and I thought the fiber fill could leak out. I purchased my 16" pillow forms from Joanne's and was very lucky that they had them at 50% off plus that weekend there was a 20% off coupon on top of that, score!

I always have a roll of kraft paper that comes in handy for making patterns and did so for my pillows, making  it  a 17" square.  I added the additional 1" all around to give me enough sewing allowance plus allow a loose look to the pillows. .

I place my pattern  on the shirt front (making sure that the shirt is totally buttoned up) paying attention to where the button line would be and also the pocket. Most of the ones I made the button line is center but I also liked the look of the button area being a bit off to the side. The pocket looked best if it's down a bit from the top of the pillow. I then traced the pattern onto the fabric and then cut. I used a sharpie marker for my tracing figuring it was going to be cut off so it was okay to do that, maybe?

Okay sewed all four sides, snipped the corners so they wouldn't bunch up, unbuttoned the shirt, turned inside out, pressed and inserted pillow and viola!. It's pretty easy.

The first pillow I made looked like this right from the sewing machine. Yawn..... it was boring looking to me. It looked clean, crisp, like a well dressed man, but it didn't fit in with the decorating scheme I was going after.

So I tea dyed it and the coloring was better but there was another problem.  Not sure if you can see it in the photo but there's a streak down the side of the buttons that makes the pillow look dirty. My guess is that no customer will want to buy a pillow that looks dirty no matter how cute it thinks it is. Luckily I can just bleach it out and start again.  Since then I've learned what not to do when tea dying and will gladly share that with you on another post.

So after the tea dye I'm still yawning........ though not so much. Just didn't have that zing I was looking for. So I then did one more thing and made up some small covered buttons with some contrasting shirt material  and glued them on top of the existing buttons.  Now it's better, not perfect but better.   Love to hear what you think about it .Juror is out if I'll make buttons for the rest of  the pillows. Oh yeah I took away the button on the pocket that was a bit of over kill. 

My hope is that when I get all 15 pillows out on display at the craft show they all will look great!

Deconstructing A Man's Shirt!

I read in a magazine not too long ago how you could make pillows from men's shirts and I just loved the idea. At the time though I had my soap business and there was just no way I could fit that into my schedule.

Once the business was sold this was one of the firsts things I set out to do. I hunted all over town for the perfect men's shirts for the projects I had in mind. I think I was successful and purchased 18 shirts for $25.00 with a total visit to three different thrift stores.

So today I'll be showing you the deconstructed shirt and my plans for each piece with some follow up blog posts about the individual projects. 

THE COLLAR:  I'll be using these guys once I've collected enough with colors that really work well together and create some fabric roses for some wreaths. I've actually made one already done up in shades of blue and will do a post about that in the next few days.

THE CUFFS:  Right now my plan for these guys is to make some cuff bracelets. I haven't tried this yet but hope to in the very near future. But I have to tell you I'm a bit unsure about that idea so I have these cuffs  sitting out in plain site so that they will sort of speak to me.

THE FRONT & BACK:   Both the front and back of the shirts will be used for pillows. I'll be making the pillows so that the buttons and pockets will be on the front and using the back of the shirt for the back of the pillow.  I plan on doing a 16" square pillow which will take up most of the fabric leaving some for a men's shirt patchwork pillow to also be done in the future. Also some of  the men's shirts have some nice designer labels that I'll be using on the pillows, like Clairborne etc.

THE SLEEVES: Lots of valuable fabric here that could be used for different projects. My original plan was to cut the fabric into strips and create those fabric wrapped styrofoam balls, but we'll see if that is what I'll do. I also liked the idea of creating a men's sachet with a really nice fragrant fill. I love the part of the sleeve that has that little button down the end and will definitely incorporate that into whatever project it becomes.

Okay I'm off to make some pillows and I'll get back with you to show you the wreath I made with the collar fabric roses.