Well, it’s hot as Hades up here in Eastern Washington – around 106 degrees today – and I find my life is confined to the indoors in a way it rarely is even in the darkest part of our wet Oregon winters.  Once the heat dies down in the evening, Cameron and I have a new routine of a neighborhood stroll followed by a cold (usually adult) beverage in the backyard.  Prompted by the discovery of two large pillows at Goodwill for a couple dollars each, I decided to add some comfort to our evening repose.

The pillows looked new and passed the sniff test (is there anything akin to the trepidation of the moment before you take a big inhale of a thrift store item?) so I brought them home, washed them in hot water, and hung them out to dry.  I have brought a small fabric stash up here with me, including remnants of black and natural-colored canvas from the diamond planter I shared last week, and the last of the cotton-linen left over from when I made my living room curtains.  It seemed a little plain though, so I decided to experiment with another item I already had on hand: thread.

I kept a neutral palette, because when we’re back home I envision these as floor pillows in my living room  and, though I haven’t shown you yet, my living room also houses an orange velvet couch and Beatrice – a six-foot tall vibrantly colored painting of a heavy-lidded and morose woman’s face next to a bird in a party hat.  Don’t worry, you’ll meet her soon.  Anyway, in deference to Beatrice and the orange couch (and in an effort to avoid full-on crazy), I have been opting for fairly subtle colors in the rest of the room – like the gray fabric on the bed chair.

Back to the task at hand.  I loaded my sewing machine up with thread and started stitching.  I tried a few different shapes, and settled on a couple to use for this project.

I even made a video (well, Cameron did some sweet cinematography while I sewed).  I know this isn’t rocket science, but it does give a sense of how long each cross took.

This kind of easy, non-precise sewing is right up my alley.  I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it on the blog before, but I am no type A personality.  More of a type C, or maybe even D.  Not that I don’t like things to be nice or done correctly, but I rarely strive for (or particularly appreciate) perfection.  Drawing these shapes with thread wasn’t at all complicated, but it did get a little tedious.  I just set my laptop – with a roller derby game that was streaming online – up behind the sewing machine and kept an eyeball on each.  A very pleasant way to pass a couple air-conditioned hours.

Sewing the now-patterned fabric into pillow covers was very easy; they are ‘envelope style,’ and I’ve used this great tutorial over on Little Green Notebook many times.  She recommends making the pillow covers a little smaller than the pillow itself – and for down pillows I agree – but for flat, non-malleable pillows like the ones I used here I prefer exact measurements so they don’t fold.

Sewing the cover – patterned fabric right-side up, with overlapping canvas pieces making the envelope in the back.

I’m really happy with how these turned out!  It was fun to come up with a new way to use materials I already had.  The only cost of this project was the pillow inserts from Goodwill, but even if I’d had to buy fabric and thread it still would have been a really inexpensive to do.

Gotta run – the ice in that Pimm’s Cup isn’t going to last long

I’m already brainstorming other ways to use this technique – how about you?  Mera will be back on Wednesday with a post about her recent adventures – see you then!