Monday, August 12, 2013

elephant pillow for a friend

i actually sewed something this weekend, go me! ok don't get too excited, it's just a pillow. but at least it's something! 

a friend of mine is having a birthday on friday and she loves elephants, so i knew i wanted to make her something elephanty. i searched for elephant prints and decided on this one: Valori Wells Karavan Marrakech Peacock. the elephants are pretty large in this print so i decided a cute pillow was the way to go. after conferring with some sewing friends, i decided to do a coordinating fabric for the back, and i picked this Valori Wells Karavan Savannah Peacock

i ordered a half yard of each fabric and actually you could get a whole pillow out of one half yard, so i had enough to do a second pillow, but decided to save the fabric and maybe i'll make her a boxy makeup bag or something with it for christmas.

the last pillow i made i discovered you really have to interface your fabric or the polyfill will try to start poking through your fabric, which leaves little fuzzies everywhere, and that's no good. this time i was going to buy some cheap white fabric and interline it rather than using fusible lightweight interfacing, which i thought made the fabric feel stiffer than i wanted. but then i was at joann's getting an invisible zipper to use (i picked a matching light blue), and saw they had a set of 2 pre-made pillow forms 50% off. so i decided to just save my time and use the pre-made ones. (plus this gave me another pillow form to use for another friend's birthday coming up in october.) the pillow forms are 16" square, which is exactly what i wanted.

And here's the final result, sitting on my bright red sofa, which will not be its final home. my friend has a mostly purple color scheme, so i think this pillow will fit much better in her house because there are purples in the elephant print, plus did i mention, she LOVES elephants.

front

side

back

i really hope she likes it.


almost forgot....


gratuitous dog photo! 
 

8 comments:

  1. Oh the pillow is wonderful. What a lucky friend. I bet she really enjoys it. And I love the dog pic - they always look so peaceful when they sleep!

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    1. thanks! i hope she does too!
      ella does look so cute when she sleeps, sometimes she kicks her little legs like she's going for a run in her dreams =)

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  2. Hi, pup! What a sweetie! This sounds like the perfect gift for your friend!

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    1. Thanks! and ella says "Hi" back! well she doesn't say much, but she's thinking it =)

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  3. Great minds again - I did almost exactly the sane cushion for a friend of mind who loves nellies, except in two of the other colour ways! Photos are somewhere on my blog, I'll get the link when I find it...yours look cute! (And so does Ella!)

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    1. oh i love yours!!! i just typed "elephant" in the search box on your blog and found yours =)

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  4. Late comment as I'm reading back through your blog. Great pillow. I discovered you through Karen's Sewlutions links. A quick tip on getting a squarer look to the corners - shave off a half inch on each corner, tapering to nothing about half way to the middle of the pillow. I found this tip in the Simplicity sewing for the home book, but there is an explanation and a diagram at this link:

    http://www.sewdaily.com/blogs/sewdaily/archive/2012/04/25/the-coolest-trick-for-sewing-a-pillow.aspx

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    1. Thanks for the tip! I couldn't get the corners perfect, but I just serged the entire pillow.

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Thanks for reading! I welcome any advice, insights, witty remarks, snarky comebacks, commiserations or just a quick hello. I'd love to check out your blog as well, so let me know where you're posting. Happy sewing!