Hand Stitching On Sunday

Ms. Owl is now residing on my bed.

She thinks she's pretty special.

I agree.

I used some strips left from this quilt to add to her glory.

They were already sewn in sets of 4.

That was perfect for zipper placement.

I used poly batting scraps to make her extra fluffy.

Little Birdie is coming along.

She is my Wednesday project.

Easy to work on her and chat it up with the gals.

Kathy showed her needle threader,

this is mine.  

I found it in with the crewel supplies at JoAnn's.

Kathy also showed me my next project.

Visit Kathy and her Slow Sunday Stitching post.

Tuesday Fun

 A few days ago, Connie at Quilting by the River wrote a post about Sharpie Doodle Art.  I fell in love with her piece and knew it would be a perfect project for Taylor and I.

Today was a good day to doodle.  I don't have colored Sharpies but I do have some permanent Bic markers so we gave those a try.

This is Taylor's drawing.  I ironed the fabric to some freezer paper to make it easier to draw on.  

I laid foil on the table and put down a couple paper towels. Next she started dropping rubbing alcohol from an eye dropper.  We learned from my piece not to use too much.  My piece is a mess but I'm going to try to do something with it.

When it was almost dry, I started pressing it.  Connie said she wished she had pressed a previous piece 3 or 4 times so that's what I did.  Next I layer it with some batting and started free motion quilting.  I had so much fun!  I still need lots of practice but we both think it turned into a super cute pillow! 

I'm linking this post up to Connie's Linky Party Tuesday.  Check it out, I see more pillows I think I might need!

I Should Have Been Quilting, But...

After finishing my snowman embroidery project last week, I figured I had better get the pillow made before became a UFO.  Yesterday I should have been quilting but instead I played with fabric strips and bordered my piece.

After lunch, I was going to start quilting bur there was that pillow top laying there begging for a back.  So I caved and played with more strips and added a zipper.  This morning I made some piping and put the top together.  

Then I grabbed a chuck of icky feeling fabric that I've stashed away for when I need to make a pillow form (Have you bought pillow forms lately??? WOWZA!!).  I got out the bag of polyfill and started filling my form.  I touched something that startled me and pulled out this little paper bag with a stuffing tool inside.  I've used this polyfill quite a bit and have never found a surprise inside.  

I'm happy my pillow is complete and now I will put it away for winter.  Today I must quilt.  

Pillow Fun

Yesterday at our sewing group, Marian gave me a 2 scrap pieces of polar fleece.  I'm not a fan of all the skull and cross bone fabrics that are out there.  They give me the heeby geebies.  But I know a 7 year old boy that would love them.  Instead of folding them up and putting them away this morning, I sewed them into this pillow cover.  I knew it needed a zipper so I found an old zipper and inserted it into the seam.

Anticipating a pretty good blog post, I had taken pictures of the fabric, the pillow form that I made and the finished pillow.  As I was looking to be sure the last photo was a good one, I see the message about no sd card..........therefore, no photos!  Dang.

I'm not going to take the form out of the pillow but I will tell you I took a piece of old fabric and some batting, sewed 2 24" square into pillow form that was stuffed with poly fiberfill-it takes a lot.  I didn't over stuff it because a fun pillow needs to be squishie.  Then I wrestled it to sew the top shut and stuffed it into the pillow covering.  Now it can be used and loved and when needed, washed.

Now I have no skull fabric in my stash, a nice hunk of batting scrap used up, a nice piece of old fabric out of the stash, one less old zipper and a fun gift for a cute boy.

Finished Project

While putting away some of my retreat supplies, I decided to sit down and finish my pillow tops. I had taken this old UFO kit with me just in case I needed one more project to work on. I have taken this kit with me to retreats for 3 years!

My table buddy Marilee was working on a pillow cover made from a quilt block. As I was making my first block--one was already complete--I decided to make the 2 blocks into pillow covers and be done with this UFO. I did it. I just needed to put the binding on this morning and decorative stitch it down.

Now I have 2 new couch pillows and 1 less UFO and I am happy! I told you the retreat was full of inspiration! The pieces for this former project will go back into the correct bins and I will mark this UFO off the list. Now back to laundry. :o)