Pillows Made From An Afghan!

I had this afghan sitting in my booth for quite a long time. I like to turn over merchandise in no less than 90 days and if something doesn't sell I either;

1. mark it down
2. do something else to it
3. just bring it home to live with me. 

This afghan won choice number 2

I've seen some wonderful sweater pillows on  Pinterest and blogs and the picture below is just one of many.  The blog Brassy Apple has a simple tutorial on how she made them. You can find that HERE.

Source

So this Pinterest picture was my inspiration to the idea to create some simple pillows with my afghan.

There were some difference in the knit I used, mine was a very loose weave and because of this I decided the pillows needed a liner. I had some Ikea curtains from my other home that didn't make the grade in my new home but was perfect for the lining material. I cut my curtain/liner fabric the size of my pillows which was 12" x 16".   I like a plump pillow and for that reason always use the measurement of my pillow for my fabric pieces.

The afghan with it's loose weave has a lot of give which caused a problem trying to cut the exact size of the pillow . To solve this problem I just cut a piece of the afghan  larger than my lining and then pinned the liner to the cut piece from the afghan. Then following the outer edge line of the liner I zig zag stitched the liner to the afghan. Once that was done I cut off the excess afghan material.  I repeated again for the other side of the pillow.

Then I just placed the two pieces together right sides facing each other and sew them together leaving a bit of space open at the bottom to insert pillow.  After pillow was inserted I then just slip stitched the opening closed.

As you can tell from the picture I varied how the cable lines appeared on the pillows to give each one it's own distinct look.

From the one afghan I got 5 pillows with lots of scrap for something else (?)

These pillows will be sold in my booth at Knot On Main Street for $15. each.

I'm joining these parties   

 Pillows and Cushions Link Party at Threading My Way
Sunday's Best at My 1929 Charmer  
Newbie Link Party at Debbie Doo's

Some Before And Afters!

I love when I get some really cool items at my favorite haunts that just need a bit of tweaking. Help of the kind like some spray paint that changes it from drab to fab or just a change of picture that enhances it's style.

Fruits Before 

These fruits I got at a local thrift store for a price that allows me to resell for a small profit. As you can see from the before picture they were lacking some love. One of the things I do is if I like it when I see it, I also have to like it when I pick it up. So these fruits looked good to me but if I picked them up and realized they were plastic or paper mache I wouldn't of been interested. But they were a type of metal and had some weight to them  so they made the grade. They would come home with me and get a makeover of some silver paint.

A few coats of silver spray paint and you almost wouldn't recognize them.  These guys would make a great paper weights.  So they are ready to go to my booth and I'll be asking $3 each.


I found this frame and picture also at a local thrift store and again the price was perfect for me to resell. The wood on the frame reminded me of a barn board type of wood even though it was painted a light turquoise color. The wood, the color, qualified this for the cottage chic category.

 I was surprised that no one had snatched it up. I suspect the problem was the picture inside the frame.  The frames were screaming "I"m shabby chic" and the picture was telling another whole story. Sometimes you just have look at an item and see what it can be and not what it is.

So I quickly looked on line at the Graphic Fairy's wealth of images and decided on the bird. The bird worked well with  its colors which complimented the already existing color of the frame. A vintage image coupled with the look of the frame I thought was a better fit.  Now little birdie and frame are sitting pretty  at my booth for $12 waiting for it's new home.