cloth: slow sewing

It’d been a few years since I put almost all of my fabric stash into a storage unit along with ceramic supplies. Some sewing projects, however, were still in my bedroom and coat closets along with sewing machine, rulers and tools. Finally I threaded 🪡 and hand mended first: the button fly of my favorite jeans and a string market bag from Eataly.

 

Then there was this turquoise, beige, dark gray, and forest green hand knit and felted pillow I bought from Yarn, Paper, Scissors when they closed. I loved it though I disliked the drab Amy Butler fabric (whose patterns I've loved except for a Midwest Modern one of olives) that was sewn to the wool top. I also disliked how the pillow had a 2.5" flange all around its perimeter. And so I bought a creamy beige gray linen recently at Hobby Lobby and found this spool of Aurifil olive green thread I probably picked up for free at the first ever Quilt Con I attended in Pasadena. The thread color is perfect. Before hand stitching, I hemmed the edges of the linen on my sewing machine and hoped that a 3" overlap between the two sides would be enough of an enclosure for the pillow. 

The wool square wasn't perfectly square or rectangular and wonky. Instead of blocking the wool, I clipped it to a 19" x 20" rectangle and stretched the wool at some of its edges to even out its dimensions.

And then I hand sewed the backing to the front with overcast and blanket stitches. As you can see below from the photo of my envelope pillow cover, it's not perfect, but done in this case is better.

 

The back might not be picture perfect, but I'm pleased now with the final pillow.

Patrick asked how am I to use this pillow. Dude, it's back support for a couch that is kind of too big and uncomfortable for my petite frame. My sister-in-law gave me a scarf for Christmas that is too big for me. I plan on converting it into two more couch pillows or a bolster. And there's enough linen to sew a zippered pouch embellished with a chihuahua patch and stiff backing.