Project: Pillows from Discontinued Fabric Samples

Good morning! I'm sitting at a really fantastic little restaurant in Lincoln, NE called Bread & Cup, and the atmosphere seems like something you'd get in a big city. In honor of my sister Shelley's birthday today, here are some snaps I just took with my webcam. I wish you could be here to have breakfast with me! But happy birthday anyways, and I hope you get my package today. :)

The oatmeal is delicious.

But I'm getting distracted...This is about pillows! Particularly, those pillows on my porch sofa:

So easy to do. The actual pillows came with the sofa (vintage mahogany cane-back sofa found at a garage sale on someone's porch covered in leaves, dirt & Big Wheels, not even for sale, but I bought it for a mere $25 - one of my favorite purchases!). The easy part was covering the pillows.

You'll notice that each one is different - on the front & back, so they are reversible, even! Each piece of fabric was a $2 discontinued decorator fabric sample from Joann Fabrics. Have you, also, discovered Joann's discontinued fabric swatch rack? Love!

I looked for fabrics that fit my vision for the porch - beachy, stripes, cotton, canvas, texture, not a whole lot of shimmer. There are a couple of pieces that are more "fancy" silk-looking, but they fit in. I especially like the pale blue velvet one and the paler grey-ish striped one next to it.

So I'm not going to do a super detailed tutorial - how hard is it, really, to sew up 3 sides of 2 squares of fabric, stuff your pillow in, then hand sew the 4th side? And there you have it, the tutorial. If your pillows are less dense and fit better in your fabric squares than mine, you can get away with sewing up a little bit of each edge of the 4th side, but mine are SUPER dense. Not sure what's in them, but they could probably take out an intruder if used to whack him upside the head.

Oh, the gold tufted pillow in the middle isn't part of my home-made collection - it was thrifted years ago. I lurv it. One more thing, the ticking fabric on the seat cushions is really just a large remnant I got at the local thrift for $1, then I wrapped it around the 3 cushions. Done.

I'm quite happy with this porch room. It's almost exactly how I pictured it would be when we first toured the house. It's great for having coffee & doing my Bible Study in the mornings. I'll post on how I put it all together on another day, 'cause I gotta tell you about he turquoise table...and the pendant lamp...and the chairs...



Today I'm participating in the Air Your Laundry Friday party over at the Freckled Laundry. I hope you crash the party to see what other textile projects people are doing in blogland!

Have a great weekend!