I’m resisting packing it to take to work as I will probably spend my entire lunch hour stitching and not get any prep for my classes done.

I also found a clock to reface for Style School. I have my idea all planned out, but it involves spray painting the clock and I get in trouble to stinking up the house so I have to be strategic about when I do it. It’s a bit bigger than I was thinking but it was on clearance and has a flat front.

And in an entirely uncrafting related segment may I present my son Nate eating chocolate pudding on his own. Monday was Family Day here and *most* people had the day off to spend with their . . . families! All four of us stayed in our jammies all day and just puttered around the house doing what we wanted, with some olympic watching couch snuggles here and there. I invited my mom for dinner, because she’s family, and pudding was dessert. Needless to say Nate was the one who broke our jammie day and ended up needing a change of clothes, and a bath!

It’s a tad out of focus but I had to act quick as he was flailing that spoon about a little too much.

So I was so busy finishing my pillow last night and blogging about it that I ran off to bed later than I meant to.  Today I wander over to check what the Style School assignment for yesterday was and lo and behold it was the favourite quote pillow!  So while this isn’t really a ‘favourite quote’  it’s still pretty darn cute, a quote and finished on the day a pillow was assigned!

I think I’m going to make a few more to go on our bed with this one.  I’m going to scour song lyrics and other inside jokes and use those, things that mean something to us or is an inside joke only we will get.  Can’t wait to have a few all prettily placed on our bed!

My friend gave me a few handkerchiefs her Grandmother had lying around figuring I could make something with them.  I had the idea to make them into little throw pillows for my bed.  I was going to make her one and give it to her, but I’ve already given her a pillow I made so I figured I’d be keeping it.  Then I realized one of the prints would be perfect for embroidering a little something right in the middle.

Perhaps a heart with our names in it?  So I cut out a heart and was just about to trace it when I remembered the awesomeness I had just ordered from Peptogirl!

I flipped through the patterns and found one I liked and I took the liberty of making a slight adjustment.

Here’s how I made the pillow:

First I cut a piece of plain unbleached cotton fabric a little bit larger than the hanky. Then I ironed the two pieces so they’d be nice and flat. In hindsight I should have cut the cotton a bit bigger, I ended up losing the border when I squared it up before putting the backing on.

Next, in a very high tech. transferring process, I freehandedly copied the ‘sew in love’ pattern onto the hanky, adding my own little touch.

Then it was onto embroidering before a repeat ironing performance. I just put the hanky and fabric in a hoop together and stitched my design. When I took it out the stitching was through both layers holding it together.

So off to my machine I went where I stiched around the edge of the hanky, I went on top of the hem stitching with the same colour so it wouldn’t show.

While doing that I hit a pin!! Never in all my time sewing have I actually hit the pin. CLUNK! went the machine, and I totally expected the pin to have snapped and tried to pull it out, but nope! It was just bent like crazy! Everything seemed fine so I just took it out and kept going.

Then I chose some fabric for the back, our duvet cover is brown so I was going for something that would make this a nice little pillow to toss on our bed. I squared up the edges around the hanky and then I laid down the front, right sides facing, to see how big it was and cut a piece for the back.

Then I pinned it together, with the pins waaaaay inside to make sure I didn’t hit one again, and sewed around with a 1/4 inch seam.
In retrospect the hole I left for turning and stuffing seemed a tad too small but I got it. When I went back to my bag of stuffing to grab some more I found this peaking out.

I was so excited, a stuffing tool?! Wow. Was stuffing going to be easier?! Why hadn’t I found one in my last bag of stuffing?! Then I opened it and realised it’s really just a chopstick and I could have gotten one of those from the kitchen. My hands worked just fine.

Stitched the stuffing hole closed and ta da! A cute little pillow to enjoy!