Sweater Pillow Tutorial

I came across some cozy sweater pillows while shopping the other weekend and wanted to bring them home with me. I like to change the covers on my pillows quite often so I don't like to spend a lot of money on them (especially when we have a sewing room full of fabrics available!). 

So the other weekend when Country Mouse and I got together we tried making our own and loved how they turned out.

We thought we'd share with you how we made our own sweater pillows. It's the perfect way to recycle some of those sweaters that have been taking up room in your closet since last season (you know you have some!). And a quick project - you can probably finish one in less than an hour.

Materials/Supplies (for an 18" x 18" pillow):

• One old sweater (a cableknit makes a beautiful cover, but if you only have a plain one you can hand sew some kind of embellishment to it at the end like we did with the blue sweater)
• 18” x 18” Muslin or any cotton fabric for backing your sweater piece
• 25” x 18” fabric piece for your envelope backing
• One 18” x 18”pillow form
• Thread
• Sewing machine
• Walking Foot (helpful, but not absolutely necessary)

Instructions:

1.Determine what part of your sweater you wish to use for your pillow front. Be sure you are able to cut it the size of your pillow form! Cut out an 18” x 18” square.

2. Cut from the muslin one 18" x 18" square. From your fabric for the pillow back, cut two 12 1/2" x 18" rectangles.

3. Pin the sweater piece right side up onto the muslin and stitch ¼” seam around all four sides.

4. Take one of the rectangles you cut and fold over ½” along the long edge and press Fold over another ½”, press and pin in place. Stitch down the fold, sewing about 1/4" in from the folded edge. Repeat with the second rectangle. 

5. Lay the 18" square right-side up, then place the rectangles right-side down on top of the square with the folded and stitched edges overlapping in the middle. Pin around all edges.

6. Sew around all edges of the pillow with a 3/8" seam allowance.

7. Turn the pillow cover right side out, push out corners. Insert your pillow form and get cozy! 

Fall Shop Updates

We finished sewing new sets of aprons, towels, and oven mitts for the shop incorporating some of our finds from treasure hunting sales and fall colors. The photo above is a collage of some of the new fabrics and fall color inspiration. I'm trying to put together a little collage of fabrics and textures each time we create a new line of shop items (hoping to do this each season!)

We're also working on a monthly (or seasonal) newsletter - see the sign up on the right side of the blog - which will include news and special discounts for our etsy shop. We'd love for you to sign up!

This past weekend was unseasonably warm and sunny for us. I took full advantage of the sunshine and had a lot of fun playing stylist and photographing the new aprons, towels, and oven mitts. 

I did make time to reconnect with some college friends who I had not been in touch with for several years. We became close after spending nearly a month in Michigan together for a summer field course for our Fisheries and Wildlife degree. It was so much fun to catch up and find out what everyone is up to, it's quite funny that none of us are working in the field of our major! But that's ok, we agreed that we loved learning to identify birds by their songs and to recite scientific names (always a popular topic at a party, right?). I think that's why the little butterfly made it into the shop pictures, I was reminiscing of plant identification and life cycles. 

Funny how that happens, isn't it?

I hope your week is off to a great start! 

Thanks for stopping by, Jamie

Bayfield Apple Festival

This past weekend Country Mouse and I made it to Bayfield for the Apple Festival. Even though the forecast said it was going to be sunny by noontime, it was rainy most of the day. But there was still much to be enjoyed...

Fall Colors! We spotted an estate sale on the way to Bayfield and made sure to make a stop on the trip home, lots of good stuff came home with us including doilies, linens and a miniature dollhouse sewing room.

Lunch: curried chicken sandwich, apple squash soup (I'm going to try making this one) 

and honeybee lattes

Wine! Yes, we brought home apples too :)

And the beautiful Lake Superior

After the trip to Bayfield we spent the rest of the weekend in the sewing room with our fabric and goodies from the estate sale. I hope to get photos of all of our new creations this weekend and have a shop update next week. 

How about you, have you been enjoying Fall?