Damn crafty!

Really, I do have some talents. At one time, I think I had singing and dancing talents, but there's not much call for that as an adult if you don't make a career of it. No, my talent is sewing. I do lots of different kinds and also wish I had time to do others. Lately my work on my talent has consisted of making my kids' Halloween costumes every year. I think I did an especially great job with them this year.

Wild Child #1--no introductions needed

Wild Child #2--Cowgirl (look at those boots! I did not make those)

This stems from the fact that in the past I have made historical clothing of various shapes and sizes for various people.

If I had more time and money and inclination, I would probably work on quilts. But, in the meantime, if a fabric store has a sale or clearance, I pick up things here and there and think I will work on them. Case in point, two Raggedy Reverse Applique pillows I bought thinking it would go with my sister's decor for her new baby. This new baby, well, she was born nearly two years ago. I decided since baby #2 was on the way, maybe I better get these long forgotten presents done for baby #1.

Here's how it went.
Fabrics chosen were purple, green and orange, based on the recommendation of the kit. The back was a fun print with flowers that exactly matched what I was doing on the front.


In case you're wondering, applique is when you sew some fabric on the front of something (like a quilt) and then cut away the back from it so it doesn't get bulky. Reverse means I'm cutting away the front fabric to reveal the under fabric. So the layers are orange on the bottom, green in the middle and the top of the pillow (background for the flower) is purple.

I traced the pattern of the flower on some see through fabric that I could rip away after sewing it down over all three layers.


You can sort of see the flower pattern before I pinned it, and then you can see the sewing on top of all four layers.




The next step is to cut away the see through fabric and then carefully cut only the layers you need to reveal the underneath layer. Green was the middle layer and orange was at the bottom. The cutting, tracing the outline, cutting away the pattern and sewing the front to back only took me three hours.

However, the next step was what made it a long arduous process.

The final step is to clip the edges like a fringe and then throw it in the washing machine to make the edges ravel. Now for me, I washed the fabrics before starting and they raveled in the machine in their first wash. However, once it was sewn all together, it was hard to get them to ravel like I wanted them to. I think I washed and dried them about five times.

Which is why there's no final picture, because I washing the pillow cases up to the last minute before we drove to my brother's to see him and his girlfriend, my sister and her family, and my mom and dad. I also did not document the cute fish pillow done the same way. But, in the end, I was satisfied with the results and my niece loved laying on them anyway.