ColourMeRight

Hello everyone! Well well well. Where have I been? Yes I know…. long time no post! But I now have something to make up for it: a new website! Yey! For those of you who follow this blog (and thank you for doing so) I have a brand new blog where I have migrated the contents of this blog to and will now use for my new posts. If you are still interested in my sewing adventures please check it out:…

Hope you are all well.

Today I bring you a project that started somewhat a year ago. Yes I know. It was one of my projects that stay hidden in a shelf for months until I finally force myself to finish them.

It all started when I wanted to make a pillow for my fiancée with owls on it. It had to be manly and at the same time it had to use the materials I had at home. I immediately though of denim fabric (of course!) and I devised a way to try and make the owls in denim and then machine appliqué them in a old jersey grey t-shirt which I intended to turn into a pillow.

As you can see in the picture above, I did manage to make that pillow but as I was still learning how to do machine appliqué for the first time, taking pictures of the step by step process was far from my mind.

But fear not because my intention (and the reason the project was not completed) was to make a pair of pillows much the same way so that I could put them on our bed and complement our other denim pillows (you can see them here: https://colourmeright.wordpress.com/2015/10/01/my-first-big-project/).

Thus, the step by step process of making my second pillow can be seen in the next pictures. I decided to make a tree as a match for the owls, you know… because owls live in trees.

First things first, I cut an extra large t-shirt into two 50 x 50 cm squares (the same size as the pillows I had bought from IKEA – I like my pillows to be a little bit firm so the pillow case ends up a tiny bit smaller than the actual pillow).

In the  pictures above you can see the tree appliqué being put together. I forgot to take pictures of the tiny “bushes” being sewn onto the “log” of the tree but you can see here the “branches” being sewn onto the “crown”. Basically you want to sew the parts of the tree in a determined order so that when you are ready to sew the appliqué onto the pillow you only need to sew its outside edge .

As a rule of thumb you sew anything that needs to be behind another piece first… as with the owls I needed to sew the grey parts of the “face” before I could sew the navy part of the “eyes”, then the black part of the “eyes” and the last piece to be sewn was the “beak”.

You then place the finished appliqué in the centre of the jersey fabric square (which will be the front of your pillow)…

…and stitch the outside edge. I used the type of stitch marked with the red arrow. The best way to try and do machine appliqué yourself is to play around with your machine stitches. I found this one to do want I wanted and I played with the stitch length and width as well until I was satisfied (use a scrap piece of fabric to do this). On the right you can also see the wrong side of the fabric after stitching the tree appliqué. I know it is not perfect but hey it is only my second attempt.

After this you just stitch the two squares (right sides facing) with a seam allowance of about 0.5cm (or 1/4 inch) and leaving an opening of about 15 cm (~35 inch) to turn your pillow case right side out. Insert the IKEA pillow inside and hand-stitch with a slip stitch the opening to close your pillow completely. I chose not to sew a zipper or make an overlap opening for these pillow cases because the IKEA pillow is machine washable as well as the cover itself, so whenever I want to wash them I just put them in the washing machine and then I let it air dry. Also, I was not planing to change the pillow case any time soon but if necessary, I will just unpick the hand stitched seam.

And here it is, the new pair of pillows in their final spot. I think they look cute. I know I probably will get tired of them in the long run but for now they serve their purpose: to complement my other bed pillows and provide a soft cushioning for random naps.

Hope you enjoy this tutorial.

Yours truly~

M.

Today I bring you a non-sewing tutorial *gasp*.

Yes it is probably the first one but this Christmas I also made some mouse pads to offer my family because everyone has a computer nowadays and it is such an easy project that I wanted to include it in my gifts. The inspiration for it actually came from browsing my local arts and crafts store and noticing a self-adhesive foam sheet. I had also planned to buy some fat quarters and well… an idea was born.

As seen in the pictures above, the first step is to trace the foam sheet in the fabric after cutting it to de desired length. I was lucky enough that I did not had to waste any fabric as the fat quarter had almost the exact measurements I needed  (as it had already been cut for my previous catch-all fabric box project). I cut the fabric with a “seam” allowance of about 0.5 cm (~1/4 inch).

The next step was to glue every corner as seen in the picture above with a universal liquid glue. This will ensure the fabric would not unravel and that the corners would be “tucked in” nicely.

Then it was time to glue the “seam” allowance to hide the raw edges of the fabric which would help later on with attaching the fabric to the foam sheet.

After gluing all of the fabric edges, it was time to attach the fabric to the foam sheet. As seen in the picture above, the actual sheet is black just like a normal mouse pad. I chose light coloured fabrics because they work better to reflect the light of the mouse’s laser.

Starting with one of the sides, match both corners of the fabric with the foam sheet and slowly remove the white paper as seen in the above pictures. Remember to make sure that there are no bumps and that the fabric is supposed to be just slightly bigger that the actual foam sheet.

Et voilà! You have a cute mouse pad that took you just 20 minutes to make.

This is a quick, easy and inexpensive project with a great potential for customization. I used fabric but you could easily use a photograph or a heavier weight printed paper instead.

Hope you like this idea.

Yours truly ~

M.

Based on a Youtube video tutorial by Vanessa from CraftyGeminiCreates.

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