Pillows Part 3: Don’t Forget Alaska

If' you’re curious why this is part 3, check out part 1 and 2!

Sometimes I think I should name my blog “Sew Imperfect”, but I’m sure that’s someone else’s blog already. Thankfully all the mess-ups in my crafting adventures haven’t stopped me yet. And every now and then I have a moment when it all comes together with nearly no hitches. This pillow was one of those!  Check out my new favorite pillow:

You can find the tutorial for this pillow at kiki creates. She includes a template of the map that fits on a normal size piece of felt, but you could use any fabric. I was about to start sewing it on and not include a heart {like Kiki did} since we have family in many places. Then my husband requested I include Alaska where he grew up and his mom currently resides. I chose an image on Google that looked simple enough to sew around. Alaska’s placement was a little tricky on my pillow—it looked funny floating where it geographically is. So, as it is on many maps, Alaska seems to be more tropical. {Sorry Hawaii, you didn’t make the cut. I know those of us from the “Lower 48” often don’t understand.}

This pillow gives me hope for future felt and applique projects. I learned I did best when I went very slowly or hand cranked my sewing machine to make all the turns.

So, the new pillow crew is done, at least for now!

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Pillows Part 2: Fave Clothes on the Couch

There have been a few of my daughters’ clothes that were very difficult for me to part with. Those made from amazing fabrics have found a home in my fabric stash! My living room pillow redo was an opportunity to enjoy these great prints again! {Check out part one of the pillow making extravaganza if you missed it.}

One of my favorite photos of the girls to date! {In front of our home in Germany 2 years ago}

I had to cut off the bodice which let the gathering out. I was able to get two 16-18 inch squares from the dress. As I happily worked along, I accidentally cut with my rotary cutter down the wrong side of my cutter guide, about 1/3 of the way into one of the squares! I quickly decided instead of beating myself up over this mistake, that I would use some of my linen look-alike fabric to help. Thus entered the ruched look into this pillow.

I basically followed the instructions for making the t-shirt scarves from last year, then sewed the ruched piece between my two printed pieces.  I discovered it was best to run it through the machine with the ruched part on top to make sure the needle caught each ruffle. The first time the ruched was on the bottom, and I had to go back and hand sew a few spots that got missed.

So, not perfect, but fun, a solution to a situation gone awry. And even better paired up with the other pillows!

You can’t see them, but zippers were my closure of choice—the first time I’ve tried those since my college sewing class. Yes, another mountain that was not so scary to climb, IF you’re not a perfectionist.  The closure for my next pillow became the next mountain….

Buttonholes! I figured it out now, but with much messiness, ripping stitches, etc. Don’t look too close if you ever visit. Again, this one did not turn out perfectly, but it was a fun was to use a cute top of my daughters’ for a small pillow that did not go with my new color scheme.

The shirt in another of my favorite photos from 2 years ago {can you believe my camera got this shot?}.

Because I decided to use the hemmed bottom edge of the shirt for the center button closure, there wasn’t enough fabric to cover the back. So, the linen-look fabric got utilized again. I think this and using the big brown button helped this pillow not look too much like something for a kids’ room.

In position with the rest of the old clothes, dish towels, forgotten treasures, and flea market misfits…

…and part 3 of the pillow making to come!

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Pillows Part 1: Infuse Some New Color

A few weeks ago, some chocolate got on two of the throw pillows in our living room. {Cream puffs were the culprit!} I decided to wash the pillow covers. One came out fine. I could not zip up the other afterward, and it was coming apart a bit. So….

…what an opportunity to change things up! I’ve had mostly red and green décor in our living room for at least 6-10 years; I really can’t remember when it exactly began. I didn’t want to completely redo everything, so I decided upon a really FUN fabric I bought from the flea market to make a pillow from. It added turquoise, orange, and a lot more pink!

I chose to trim a square of it and back the pillow with some linen colored fabric to calm it down a bit. I successfully managed to make mitered edges!

When I was working on this pillow, I remember I had a Pottery Barn Outlet too-good-to-pass-up purchase pillow that never found a spot in our home. I dug it out of storage, and it matched perfectly!

Next, I decided to use a bit of the multi fabric to make a ruffle for a dish towel pillow I made a few years ago. It really helped pull things together. This was phase one of the living room color infusion. Stay tuned for part two!

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Addendum: Hey, hey—thank so much!!!

Jake, Oldie, and Pepe the Pill Bug

My girls have a new found interest in pill bugs or “roly-polies”.

For several days there has been talk of a roly-poly race from Dad, but other things have prevented it from happening, including several unintentional roly-poly deaths! Ah, how the girls are learning about being really careful not to squeeze them when they pick them up or step on them or how they need lots of air in the jars that become their new homes. Thankfully this has been without tears and there are many replacements out in the yard. We have now learned about the ideal habitat for our pill bug “pets.”

Today new pill bugs were able to race in a colorful track of end-to-end markers. It was amazing to see how they went forward like in a race with minimal or no help! Keeping encouraging hands away was a challenge.

Jake, Oldie and Pepe neck in neck here…

And nearly to the finish. It seemed the younger or smaller bugs were quicker on their feet. Or maybe they’d been handled less? 

So, a silly thing to blog about, but lots of fun and memories for our family.

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Cake of Cream Puffs

My husband celebrated his birthday yesterday, and he requested a cake of profiteroles as we know them here in Portugal. You may know them as cream puffs.

We see large cakes of them in the bakeries here, and my husband didn’t want me to spend a lot buying one of those. So, I bought several boxes of frozen cream puffs at LIDL {kind of like ALDI} for a great price. I put them on a cake stand to thaw for an hour and then drizzled on the included chocolate before serving.

Checking online, I see I really didn’t make a Bolo de Profiteroles {cream puff cake}. I checked some Portuguese recipes, and they use the cream puffs to decorate the outside of a real cake and fill in the spaces with whipped cream and/or egg cream which is very popular here.

So, it wasn’t the real deal, but there were no complaints here. A new easy dessert was discovered! And the simplest birthday “cake” I’ve ever made!

More UK Fun and Food

Although we didn’t have a chance to do all the touristy things on this last trip to the UK, we sure appreciated things that were really British, like taxis.

or stone fences that divide the green {and usually sheep!}

or amazing homes that look like castles spotted from the train.

How about fish and chips?

Or hot cross buns? Really, I don’t think I’ve ever thought about them outside of our elementary school class learning how to play that song on a recorder. But they’re awesome--the closest thing to yummy raisin bread from the States that I’ve had in a long time!

And then there were some surprises that made us smile: {a speed limit sign}

Or our children:  Have you had a chance to try the walk-on-water balls? Our girls are pretty good at it!

 

And lastly, some Americana:  So fun to see and be able to buy, yet the prices kept us from splurging on foods we don’t ever get but really can live without!