During pillow week, I cut three pillows that I didn't get around to making.  The week before Christmas, I found myself with a free hour and got around to finishing them.

This is one half of a pair of small lumbar pillows for the ticking stripe chairs.  I love this fabric, but I did not love fussy cutting it.  I wish the pillows were a little longer (these arer 14" x 18"), but I was intent on using pillow forms I had on hand.  The piping is a solid khaki color from scraps of the pillow below.

I needed something a little plainer with all the prints going on in the room, so I used this slubby khaki cotton for this 22" square pillow.  I rooted around the studio to find a trim and the only one that was the right color and I had enough of was this green velvet.  I edge stitched it onto the pillow front before I sewed it together.  I am really happy with the way it turned out.  The textural differences make the pillow more interesting.  A wider ribbon would have been perfect, but this one does the job nicely.

Here's the couch in the family room with all the pillows.  I didn't fluff or plump or straighten up for this, but you get the idea.  To the left of the photo are the two ticking chairs with the red pillows.  The dresden plate floor pillows sit on a shelf below the coffee table.  The pillows on the couch get moved around a lot and look good together in any combination.  I think it is all coming together nicely, but the room still needs some work, namely a rug, lamps and a big edit of some built in bookcases.  Also, I'd love a new coffee table, but I am not sure that is in the budget right now.  I do have an idea to hack the one I have -  I just need to put that plan into action.

Spiffing up the family room made me realize just how easy and fast it is to revamp the house with things I already have.  For the cost of a few yards of fabric, I have a much more pulled together room.  I want to keep moving in this direction. I'd love 2011 to be the year I focus on my home.  There are quite a few projects on my to-do list and I plan on knocking them off one-by-one.  I'll keep you updated as I go along.

During pillow week, I cut three pillows that I didn't get around to making.  The week before Christmas, I found myself with a free hour and got around to finishing them.

This is one half of a pair of small lumbar pillows for the ticking stripe chairs.  I love this fabric, but I did not love fussy cutting it.  I wish the pillows were a little longer (these arer 14" x 18"), but I was intent on using pillow forms I had on hand.  The piping is a solid khaki color from scraps of the pillow below.

I needed something a little plainer with all the prints going on in the room, so I used this slubby khaki cotton for this 22" square pillow.  I rooted around the studio to find a trim and the only one that was the right color and I had enough of was this green velvet.  I edge stitched it onto the pillow front before I sewed it together.  I am really happy with the way it turned out.  The textural differences make the pillow more interesting.  A wider ribbon would have been perfect, but this one does the job nicely.

Here's the couch in the family room with all the pillows.  I didn't fluff or plump or straighten up for this, but you get the idea.  To the left of the photo are the two ticking chairs with the red pillows.  The dresden plate floor pillows sit on a shelf below the coffee table.  The pillows on the couch get moved around a lot and look good together in any combination.  I think it is all coming together nicely, but the room still needs some work, namely a rug, lamps and a big edit of some built in bookcases.  Also, I'd love a new coffee table, but I am not sure that is in the budget right now.  I do have an idea to hack the one I have -  I just need to put that plan into action.

Spiffing up the family room made me realize just how easy and fast it is to revamp the house with things I already have.  For the cost of a few yards of fabric, I have a much more pulled together room.  I want to keep moving in this direction. I'd love 2011 to be the year I focus on my home.  There are quite a few projects on my to-do list and I plan on knocking them off one-by-one.  I'll keep you updated as I go along.

I said I'd be back Sunday and it's Tuesday. Life, you know.

I didn't manage any pillow action on Saturday as I was busy hosting a paper doll birthday party for Kate.  More details on that later.  But, back to the pillows... Sunday night I whipped up one more for the family room couch.  It's 18" square with piping and I'm kind of kicking myself for not buying more than 1 yard of this fabric because I really want to make one more just like it.  I probably could have made it work had I thought it through before I started cutting, but I didn't.  Oh well.

That brings the grand total for the week to 11 pillows - not too shabby, if I may say so myself.  I have two more I'd love to finish before our holiday guests (hi Mom and Dad!) arrive next week and I am going to try to fit those in between Fatty's birthday, dentist appointments, hair cuts, swim meets and the like.  I'd also like to make another dog bed, but I'm not counting on getting a chunk of time big enough for that endeavor. This is me trying to be realistic, you know.

I'd like to thank you all for following along and making pillows with me.  I know that it is not the most exciting of blogging topics, but I hope you maybe learned a little something.  I really enjoyed having a crafting focus and a reason to use all the pillow forms hanging around the sewing room.  And, bonus, my family room is looking pretty darn good at the moment.  Photos forthcoming. Pinky swear.

It's been a busy few days around here, but I've still been working on my pillows.  I cut and chain pieced the blades for these dresden plates on Wednesday.  Yesterday, I sewed them together and appliqued them to the pillow fronts.  This afternoon I put the zippers in and sewed the pillows.  The blue and white ticking is the same fabric as the chairs in the family room and the dresden plates are made entirely from scraps.  I tried to keep to blue/red/green/gold color palette, but it's loosely interpreted.  At 24" square, these pillows are going to be used as floor pillows.  The girls can scoot around on them, sit on them while they read and draw, and the rest of my new pillows will stay on the couch.  That is the goal anyways.

It's Kate's 9th birthday today and we have some celebrating to do.  Back on Sunday with a pillow week wrap up.  See you then.

I tackled Kate's pillows yesterday.  They are meant to be like Euro shams that you see in catalogs, but they measure 22" vs. the standard 26".  I just like the look of two pillows behind her monogrammed sham (which I did not make nor monogram myself) better and two 26" pillows is too much.  So 22" it is.  Kate has two twin beds in her room so I made four pillows.  They all have zippers and I pre-washed this seersucker fabric so they could be laundered without worrying about shrinkage.  The fabric is a match to her window seat and will look fantastic with her quilts if I ever finish them.

Again, I wanted to put piping on these pillows for some detail, but I ran out of fabric.  Instead, I did a small flange (I guess that's what you call it).  I cut the fabric to 23" square and sewed the front and back together with a 3/8" seam.  Once turned outside, I pressed the edges flat and then topstitched all the way around 5/8" from the edge.  It's kind of like a reverse french seam.  I like how it gives a little interest to the pillows without commanding too much attention.

That's eight pillows for the week.  I'm trying for two more tonight.  Back tomorrow with details on those.  In the meantime, check out the flickr group for some really great inspiration.

The video tutorials put me a day behind on my show and tell.  No big shakes, but I am going to keep posting what I did the day before so I can keep track.

I made two of these pillows for the family room couch.  They are 22" square and were supposed to have some of that red and white tassel trim shown in the photo a couple of posts down so I didn't add any piping.  I hated, really really hated, the way the tassel trim looked so I left it off.  I'm wishing I had put piping in, but I didn't have enough fabric anyhow so there was no turning back.  I do think they look good, especially with yesterday's pillows so yay!  I'm well on my way to a very spruced up family room.  And maybe a new Christmas tree skirt so I can use that trim after all.

Back tomorrow with Kate's pillows - I knocked out all four of those today!  Woot!

Here are the two pillows I finished yesterday

They'll end up on the couch, not this chair.  I've got something else planned for the chair.

And now, here is the zipper tutorial in video form.  It's long - 17 minutes - so you'll need to settle in to watch it.  The fact that I can show you how to do a lapped zipper and finish the pillow in that amount of time should tell you just how fast you can do this.  Also, please excuse the coughing fit.  If I could figure out how to edit better, I would have cut that bit. ;)

For more specific instructions, including how to determine the length of your zipper and how big to cut your pieces, refer to the photo zipper tutorial.  It's the same as the video, just not in motion picture format.

Put a zipper in your pillow tutorial by House on Hill Road from Erin Harris on Vimeo.

There are some pillows popping up in the flickr group.  Can't wait to see what you all make!

Here are the two pillows I finished yesterday

They'll end up on the couch, not this chair.  I've got something else planned for the chair.

And now, here is the zipper tutorial in video form.  It's long - 17 minutes - so you'll need to settle in to watch it.  The fact that I can show you how to do a lapped zipper and finish the pillow in that amount of time should tell you just how fast you can do this.  Also, please excuse the coughing fit.  If I could figure out how to edit better, I would have cut that bit. ;)

For more specific instructions, including how to determine the length of your zipper and how big to cut your pieces, refer to the photo zipper tutorial.  It's the same as the video, just not in motion picture format.

Put a zipper in your pillow tutorial by House on Hill Road from Erin Harris on Vimeo.

There are some pillows popping up in the flickr group.  Can't wait to see what you all make!