Nesting & Pillows

Apparently I am nesting lately...Although it feels as if it takes more the form of worrying and making lists and giving David things I want him to do, not me. It is hard for me to get my mind around the fact that we are in our third trimester as of Wednesday. How is time going by so fast?

I've been in the craft room a little these past couple weeks...I started a doll quilt from instructions posted on the Sew, Mama Sew blog. All month they have easy projects you can do with fat quarters. There are lots of ideas for working with what you already have and I think they are posting a project for each day of the month. I've been starring lots of the projects in my reader for later.

In an impulsive fit of frustration I bought a slipcover for our couch last week. Poor couch has been clawed to shreds by our kitties. And since it is not even 4 years old I just cannot replace it yet. I've never been a huge fan of slip-covers, but it does look better than the shredded look we previously had going in our living room. The new slipcover, however necessitated new pillow covers because we went from a burnt-red-orange colored couch to a grey one. Only one of the previous pillow sets still worked. So I whipped up 2 new sets of pillows with some fabric I had on hand. I bought the fabric at Ikea a while ago and it worked out perfect for pillow covers.

For a snug pillow cover, I found this recipe works quite well:

1. Cut one piece of the fabric you want to be the pillow front to the exact size of the pillow you want to cover, so if your pillow is 20x20, cut the piece the same size.

2. Cut two more pieces for the backing fabric. The height will be the same as your pillow height. To calculate the width add 6 inches to your pillow width and divide by 2. So, if the pillow you are covering is 20x20, your two pieces would be 20x13.

3. For the backing pieces, fold the long edge 1 inch and press. Fold again by 1 inch, press and stitch close to both edges.

4. Lay the pillow front right side up and lay the backing pieces right side down on top of it. They will overlap. Pin all the way around and stitch (I used a 1/2" seam allowance).

5. Clip corners and turn right side out. Go find your pillow and cover that bad boy up!