Sew Many Pillows

Last Friday night and early Saturday morning was all about sewing pillows to re-freshen our living room. I've sewn 7 pillows in last couple of weeks. Yep, 7 pillows. It's been pillows madness around here. In the past I've said pillows can add a ton of impact, well I need to say it again! Changing out pillows is a must. Every since we refinished our hardwood floors in our home, I've wanted to freshen up our living room. This deep indigo Robert Allen Ikat print was the starting off point to begin the change. I made these two pillows a few weeks back and adore how they look in our living room.

Here's a reminder of how our living room looked a few months ago. Our living room had a blue accent wall, on our sofa were pillows I bought from Target, we had the pillows for over two years so it was time for a change. On the our armless chairs were two lumber pillows, I got the fabric from Calico Corners and made pillows covers. Along with two white pillows, also sewn by me.

While out at Joann's buying invisible zippers for the Ikat pillows I came across Vibrant Vines Waverly fabric, which Mr. CLH and I both liked. Which can be rare, he's not into flowers. He prefers geometric and Ikat prints. So finding a fabric we BOTH liked without compromising makes me smile. I ordered the fabric, and waited patiently 14 + days, which is not cool, Joann's needs to work on the shipping process . I ordered the fabric on a Tuesday and it wasn't shipped until the following Wednesday, again not cool. I'm in love with this print and love how it looks turned into pillows.

For our armless chairs, I still love the lumbar pillows I made, but decided to up-cycle them into 18x18 pillows with turquoise piping. Using leftover fabric I had of the key west print. I retired the lumbar key west pillows. The goldenrod yellow and the turquoise look amazing together.  Well I have one pillow done, and am working on the other one. Like I said on Tuesday 'Piping Ain't Easy' :)

Both the Yellow Key west pillows, Ikat and  Vibrant Vines all have invisible zippers. I'm getting better at sewing with an invisible zipper, the key is pining the fabric to the zipper as close as possible. While shopping at a Joann's further form my house, I came across an invisible zipper foot. Sadly the foot doesn't work with my Singer sewing machine.

This is how our living is looking as of Sunday morning. The blue wall has been painted over and we moved our living room furniture around. We have a bare wall badly in need of artwork above our chairs. I love the smaller Ikat lumbar pillows I made, the actually have better back support then the Keywest pillows had. I really like the additional colors in the new pillows add in our living room.

Next on my living room agenda, Artwork (we are in serious need), More lamps, maybe a dresser? I'm loving the new color the pillows additions and pillow re-dos in our living room. These small changes already are making a huge impact.

What do you think?

Piping Ain't Easy

Ok, I'm cracking up over my blog title today, blame it taking care of a newborn and getting little sleep last night. Anyways I love how  tweaking a song title, works for a blog title :) Today I'm finishing up a sewing project that's taking a little longer than expected. Remember my beloved { to me } Key West print lumbar pillow covers I made for our armless chairs in our living room? If not here's a reminder. I'm still loving the print, just wanted to add a twist.

So I've been sewing new pillows with left over fabric I have and adding an unexpected pop of color to this already colorful print. Yup, I'm adding turquoise green piping to the pillows!

The turquoise green piping looks works well with the new fabric I bought for living room. I'm loving how the piping is looking so far and I'm sewing invisible zippers to, so its requiring a whole bunch of extra work. Piping ain't easy, lol. Hopefully I'll be a piping pillow master by pillow # 2 if so, I'm so adding piping to the cushion I'm making for our outdoor dining room bench.

Hopefully I'll have these pillows along with the new ones I just finished up, can't wait to share the amazing { to us } fabric I just bought and turned into pillows.

What do you think so far of the color combination?

Sewing Zippers, Not Hard

Remember last week when I planned to sew two new pillows for our living room, only to realize I didn't have enough fabric. That super sucked. Lucky for me Joann's carries a dark navy fabric that worked well with the fabric I originally bought. I'm addition to making pillow covers, I decided to try using a an invisible zipper. Usually when I sew pillow covers I do an envelope style closure, because the zipper scares me. I love how the pillows turned out! The deep the print and dark indigo looks good on our sofa. Love it!

Not only to the pillows look good, I was able to sew-in the invisible zippers. Can I get high five! Oh yeah, I'm still doing my happy dance.

I conquered the zippers (kind of) Let me explain. I have a standard zipper foot, but invisible zippers turn out best when you use an invisible zipper foot. Well my Joann's sells invisible zippers, but no invisible zipper foots. Which makes no sense to me at all. I used this Zipper How To and improvised on installing the zipper doing and inside stitch and outside stitch. The zippers were actually pretty easy to install, just made sure I pinned a lot and they came out NICE!

For the pillow insert, I used Ikea's 20x20 feather and down pillow. I love this pillow inserts, so affordable yet well made. Next I'll be on the lookout for an invisible zipper foot for the next set of pillows I'm sewing for the living room. Just waiting on the fabric to arrive! So like the blog title states, sewing zippers, not hard and I'm pretty sire they'll be even easier with a invisible zipper foot.

Now that I've conquered my zipper fear.  What's your fear about sewing?

Maybe Tomorrow?

Last week I shared the fabric I planned on using for new living room, but I couldn't find my camera cord and to share how the fabric looked on our sofa. Here's how the fabric looks on our sofa. I'm in love with the dark Indigo color.

So yesterday I got up and around early with the baby and tween ( BTW: loving the age gap so far in our boys ) and went to Joann's I decided to up my sewing game and use invisible zippers for my pillow covers. This will be a first for me, I usually skip projects that require zippers.

I got home and cut out the fabric for the pillows and realized I'm short fabric. There's only enough for the design to be on the front of the pillow. I guess I bought the fabric so long ago I forget how much I ordered! So now we'll be making another trip to Joann's looking for Indigo fabric so I can finish this project. In the meantime, I looked though my fabric stash and can across this fabric fabric I used a while back recovering a vintage chair I refinished. I've decided to make a pillow from this fabric too - just need to pick up a zipper. I think this fabric may be fun on the sofa. We shall see.

Has this happened to you, started a project only to stop because you don't have all the needed supplies? So like the title of the post, maybe tomorrow?

Fabric Swatches, Headboards & Pillows Oh My

I guess I was channeling Dorthy from the Wizard of Oz, with the post title! Moving on...a few weeks back I ordered some fabric samples for our diy headboard, possible pillows & living room dogie bed. First up potential fabric swatches for our long forgotten Master Bedroom re-do. It's been on pause while I work on my sons tween bedroom re-do (which should be done soon). When Mr. CLH & I talked about our headboard, we both agreed we didn't want white and a pattern could be fun, but then it limits the other colors and patterns we can include in our bedroom down the line. Since we decided to stick with solid fabric I wanted the fabric to have texture and be soft. Here are the two fabric swatches we are considering for our headboard. The darker fabric is a Medium Weight Linen the color is Charcoal. The lighter fabric is from Diversitex Claridge Basket weave the color is Elephant.

Here's how the potential headboard fabric would look with our bedding, the white represents our duvet, the grey our coverlet and the grey & white fabric Euro pillows. At first glance I really like the darker shade.

Looking closer, I really like the pattern weave on the Elephant swatch, I think the color might be too light? 

My other options is going with charcoal, which looks like more like a deep grey.

I'm hooked on the Nail head upholstered headboard from West Elm. Its no huge surprise I love the color of the hardboard and the texture. I also like the idea of doing double nail-head trim. I also love how close the nail head time is to the edge of the headboard, it creates a nice finished look. I've never done a nail head trim, hopefully its not hard, I'm thinking black round nail heads.

Double the fun? Or more work? lol

Here are my other two fabric swatches, I'm considering sewing some pillow covers for our living room with this fabric, so its subtle Ikat print (swatch # 2 on the right). They would cover our yellow pillows - I would use the pillow covers from time to time, when I wanted to freshen up the look of our living room. The colors and fabric type are a perfect match with our lumbar pillows. I hope you gals aren't tiring of my love from yellow!

Often when I come home from work Mojo's on our sofa on one of the pillows, and I find myself washing our pillows more often than a want. Even though he's small he still sheds some in the Summertime.  I decided to make him a bed for living room that's cool enough to lay on the floor, like his bed in our bedroom.  I'm thinking the Chevron print with turquoise / blue piping - for an additional fun pop of color. This picture below from Eddie Ross, sums up how I love cute dogie beds on living room floors. It just makes me smile. 

What do you think of the fabric swatches for the diy headboard? Basket weave or linen, for those of you that have done nail hoards before, any tips? Thanks 

Secondly - Chevron floor dogie pillow for Mojo? Or am taking on too many projects, lol

Fabric Fixation: Outdoor Finds

Last week I shared with you that I've been on a serious fabric kick for the past few months and recently bought some fabric of a couple of projects in my house. I also mentioned I found some affordable outdoor fabric, but not knowing if I wanted to DIY pillows for our front porch re-vamp. Well I'm now 100% sure I'm going to go the DIY route and saving major moolah in the process.

Check out these amazing Sundial pillows from West Elm there are 22 inch squares at $ 29.00 each. There a nice bright sundial print. Restoration Hardware is also carrying the Valencia Medallion Pillow.

West Elm - Sundial

Restoration Hardware - Medallion

Medallion - Lime

Instead of spending major moolah on one pillow, my DIY suggestion is going with the Waverly Sundial Nautical fabric for only $ 13.99 per yard { on sale } The repeat of the sundial is every 14 inches, more sundial for your buck! You can easily make two 22inch square pillows with one yard of fabric. The Waverly fabric also reminds me of the Medallion pillows from Restoration Hardware.

West Elm is also selling a pretty Summer Tile outdoor pillow, a nice and long lumbar pillow perfect for lounges, this pillow is 13x36 and is $ 34.00. I'm a huge fan of lumbar pillows I've made three in the past couple of weeks!

West Elm - Summer Tile

My suggestion, go with the Diversitex Lesh fabric available in Espresso, Lime and Indigo. At only $ 9.98 per yard this is a steal!

Next up the classic style of Pottery Barn's stripped outdoor pillows. There 20 inch pillows are sale for $29.00 each.

Pottery Barn Harbor Stripe

Pottery Barn - Classic Stripe

You can achieve the Pottery Barn look for a lot less, via Designer Fabrics online. They have a great selection of indoor/outdoor stripped fabric, $11.99 per yard - that's half the cost of one pillow. Classic deck stripes never go out of style. Indoor/outdoor fabric is also a great option for family rooms and childern's rooms.

 I've ordered a few swatches for outdoor pillow options, want to make sure they'll compliment our front door were are painting next weekend.

No worries if your a little nervous about tackling DIY pillows yourself, I'll share my DIY pillow how to next week { its super easy }