The problem is there's a lot of things to store. So a long time ago, I started to use slip covers for my throw pillows in the living room to help decorate, without the added expense of buying another pillow that I'd need to store most of the year anyway. Besides it gives me the chance to use some of the cute holiday fabrics I've seen at the store.
So, up until now, I've been missing one major holiday in my collection of pillow covers and that's St Patrick's Day. I think it's mostly because often St Patrick's Day and Easter fall so close together there really isn't time to give them each their own decor time and Easter is far more important at our house. But, this year it's nice, Easter is much later and actually gives us over a month between the two, so we can decorate for both!
This week's challenge for Iron Craft is a Fat tuesday in the Quarter challenge and when I heard that I immediately remembered this giveaway, which I won! The fabric has been aging in my stash for a while now waiting for the perfect chance to use it.
So, here's one of the fat quarters I won:
For the challenge we're allowed to use one Fat Quarter and notions (no other fabric, other than something like bias tape). I wanted to make a cover for my pillow but when I folded the fabric over it just wasn't the right dimensions, I'd have to cut it and piece it together to get it to fit right. Then, I remembered that sometimes when I'm wraping gifts, I'll do it diagonally and bring all the corners to the center back of the gift. Often I can then wrap a gift with a piece of paper that I couldn't wrap normally.
So, I trimmed up the FQ to be a square and sat the piece I trimmed off aside for another project (hopefully I'll get some time to do it before St Patrick's day comes!).
Then, I folded the square in half (outside in) and sewed up the two ends. (Sorry I forgot to take a picture of that!) Next I found some coordinating ribbon and sewed it around the open edges (note: I sewed two lengths with the ends being at the seams, DON'T do that! Instead sew one long piece and it would be better to start midway between the two seams).
I marked the mid points of both sides (between the two seams, these will be the pillow corners). Then, on one side, between the two marks, I made some button holes pretty evenly spaced through both the ribbon and the fabric (the ribbon here is working as part of the button band to reinforce it). Lastly, I sewed the buttons to the ribbon on the other side of the openning.
Here's the back:
And the front:
It turns out the FQ by itself was just a bit too small for my pillow, unless I wanted to use the piece I cut off for the button band, so I used ribbon (I didn't have any bias tape that matched). There's also a little bit of a twist to the fabric due to the bias, but the pillow keeps it to a minimum.
I love the fabric and the people over at Captive Illusions put cute little sayings on their FQ packs like "Sew many quilts... Sew little time!" and "A messy house is the sign of a happy quilter." (I must be REALLY happy then! LOL).
I can't wait until tomorrow to see what the new challenge will be at Iron Craft.
Pillow covers are definitely working for me. For more great tips, head over to We Are That Family and check out this week's Works for Me Wednesday!
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