Cute, springy pillowcases for my mom!

Today I made some cute pillowcases for my mom. She is very tiny and frail and spends alot of time in her bed at home. She needed some tiny pillows to help prop her head up to watch her flat screen tv she has mounted on the wall in her bedroom. If you try to buy small pillows at any stores they are usually way to firm and plump for her to get comfortable. She just wanted me to make some pillowcases for the small pillows she has had for ages and are filled with chip foam and are quite lumpy and uncomfortable looking. So I decided to make some new pillows for her to use.

I found out about a neat trick to make the pillow more uniform and flat, not to puffy if you don't want to, on the internet.  The trick is to put a layer of batting on each side of  the inside of the pillow. I tried to cheat a bit and sew the pillow together with the batting, but my serge did not like that. So I ended up sewing the 3 sides of the pillow together leaving one of the short ends open. Then I sewed the batting together in the same way leaving one of the short sides open as well. You then tuck the batting pouch inside the pillow casing smoothing it as you go, then stuff the fiberfill into the batting pouch. This stops the fiberfill from bunching up and causing  it to form lumps.  I found that if you stuff a pillow without any batting the cotton fabric inside is slippery and makes the fiberfill want to bunch up. The batting helps hold the fiberfill where you want it. I slip stitched the batting pouch together to keep everything inside and then serged along the outside edge of the actual pillow.  That side will be inside the pretty pillowcase and won't be seen so I think it works well. I am very pleased with the results. Here are a few pictures

The white pillow is the pillow form I made. Not to puffy and nice and smooth. Looks great in the green pillowcase. But of course a purple one is so pretty too.

The next two pictures are of a small hand vacuum cleaner I got at the sewing festival in Toronto.  It is very small but works really great. Couple of AA batteries and you are good to go. It is really great to get my serger clean because every time you sew there is a lot of lint that gets into the machine and it can be hard to reach to get it out. If you ever see one I recommend you buy one. This one cost about $12.00 which is really reasonable. It works great on computer key boards as well.

Yikes! Where does the time go.

I have so many things to do and not enough time to do it, lol. Trying to get my daughter's room all set up for her. She lives in France and is coming home for a visit. I look forward to this so much because that is when I am the happiest! But cleaning is not my favorite thing to do. I often sneak down to my sewing room to work on some fun stuff and get so focused I forget how the time flies.

I was trying to finish off some stuff from last year before I start anything new (cough, cough), but fabricland keeps having these great sales and I have not been able to stay away. I'm fine if I don't see anything that strikes my fancy, but if I do I end up buying more fabric and doing other projects so my get to pile just seems to grow.

I like making quilts but find that is takes so much time to make them that I often just don't want to finish it. I love piecing the tops together because you can see how the colors come together and it looks so beautiful once its done. The basting part is the worse for me because I don't really have the space I need to do it the way I should. I often improvise and it does get the job done but I think it is harder than it should be. I also quilt it on my domestic sewing machine and being a novice at it, it to can become overwhelming fast. I do like the binding part. I love sewing the binding down by hand. It gives it such a clean, flat finish that makes the quilt look so much better.

I made a new handbag with some of my new fabric and it turned out beautiful.  I like projects that are fun and fast to make. I get a little adrenaline rush every time something comes out looking as good as I hoped it would. Here are a few pictures.

This bag is very simple which I like because it lets the fabric be the wow factor.  I forgot how relaxing it can be when you don't have a zipper to put in. It is 10 inches wide at the top, 12 inches wide at the bottom and it stands 11 inches tall, not including the handles. I am making a purple flowered one and decided to make a shoulder strap instead. The blue will fit on your shoulder but its a little tight. I will  put up pictures when I am done. I promised myself to finish the quilt I am working on before I do this so I will have incentive to get it done. So I will get back to that and be back soon.

Finally I'm Back

Sorry I haven't blogged in awhile but we were having alot of trouble with our internet. Turns out we needed a new router and a new modem. I was actually making a tote bag from a pattern on-line and was worried I wouldn't be able to finish it. It was one of the two bags I wanted to get done for the fund raiser event I went to on the 23 of February. Normally I print out the pattern before hand to have it beside me when I am sewing but this time I was lazy and didn't bother. Thank god I have made a few tote bags over the last little while because I was able to figure out how to finish it on my own. I'll know better next time. Here is a couple of pictures of the 2 bags I was able to make.

The first bag is actually a lunch bag. The pattern called for laminated cotton or oil cloth which is a specially treated fabric that is water proof and can be wiped clean with a damp cloth. The area I live in does not have a shop that carries this type of fabric so I had to come up with something else. In my frequent searching on the internet I heard of a product that might do the trick. It is iron on vinyl. It's very easy to do and I had no problems. You just have to make sure Mr. Iron doesn't touch the vinyl. The vinyl comes with a protective paper that you use to cover the vinyl when ironing it. After I made the bag and was quite proud of myself, I read that the vinyl is not washer and dryer friendly. Thats okay if you never had to wash the fabric itself, but in the real world we know that is not true. The bag would really be cute for a childs lunch bag, but the whole bag would eventually have to be laundered. I plan on trying to make a removable vinyl liner for this reason. When I give it a go I will post on how it went.

The second tote bag is made from a tutorial I saw on the Missouri Star Quilt Co. for the charm pack tote bag. I added the pockets as the original pattern didn't have any. Of course the original pattern is just a basic pattern just waiting to be customized any way you want. I love the colors and the pockets I picked out. I wanted to keep it for myself as I only had enough fabric to make the one bag. But I know it is for a good cause and will find a loving home.  The fund raiser was a huge success and a lot of money was raised to help my friend be able to take a long recovery time off work without any financial worries.

I'm kind of on a bag and tote fix right now. I am currently making another tote bag and will blog about it and post pictures when I'm done. Sometimes I find when I'm lacking some inspiration for a quilt  to make , doing a smaller project and getting it done fast encourages me to keep on sewing. That is what I tell myself when I have a couple of quilts to finish but want to start a new project instead lol. I'm going to be good though and not start another quilt until the 2 I have on the go are finished. I better get at it.