a sweater pillow....

who knew that you could take a goodwill sweater for $1.50 and make a pillow cover out of it?

ME....that's who....  :) thanks to the internet there are tons of ideas and tutorials floating around.

simple enough.....

make a few simple cuts

find an old pillow or get one at the thrift store for .25 cents

sew a few straight seams down the sides of the sweater you just cut the sleeves off of.  i didn't even measure it,  i just eyeballed it for the seams....

sew all the way around and leave a small opening to insert the pillow form.

pin the opening and whipstitch it closed.

here is the finished whipstitched seam....

and you get this

cute but boring.... you can see in the picture at the top of the post that the pillow insert i used has a dimple in the middle.  had i left it as is, it would have looked weird as pillows usually are pouffy in the middle.  so i took some of the scrap sweater fabric 

tied a knot in the end of it....

twisted it around and sewed it into a rosette.

i found a button in my jewelry armoire.  you know how you get a new piece of clothing and it has an extra button and usually some extra yarn attached to it?  well i throw all of those into my jewelry armoire  and have amassed quite a collection of buttons....do you do that too???

anyway i sewed the little button on to the rosette because it was looking a little like a pair of folded socks and it needed a little something....

i added another button on the other side of of the pillow so that i could tighten the thread to achieve that dimple...

 and a super cute pillow. So soft and cozy for winter....when it needs to be washed, i plan on just throwing it into the washer and dryer.  you could probably put a zipper or a button closure on it if you wanted to but i am all about the easy way to do things.  in fact, if you use a sweater that has a button down front or a cardigan, you have a built-in opening....

remember those sleeves i cut off of the sweater?  they're going to be turned into a pair of 

boot socks like these....two projects from one thrift store sweater.  gotta love that!!!  

now go search your closet for some old sweaters, or if you can't bear to part with any of them, hit up the goodwill or salvation army.  look for great colors or design, (cable and chunky knit designs look fabulous as pillow covers), and you will be helping out a couple of great organizations....and getting some custom decor for your pennies...

now get out there and make something amazing!!!

free storage....always a good thing......

do you remember this piece of trash?.....literally, i pulled it out of someone's trash pile....

it was really rough, inside and out,  but i loved the curves and the sturdiness 

that comes with an older piece.

the edges were pretty chewed up but i knew a little sand paper would work wonders...

I used annie sloan paint in paris grey for the piece.  i figured it would be a neutral shelving unit and any color of fabric that was placed in there would show off as pretty.  

because we all need pretty in our lives, don't we?

 i love that all of my vintage sheets now have a beautiful home....

  to make it even prettier, i painted the shelves in a pretty turquoise. 

 i still plan on getting a piece of beadboard for the back which i will paint the same turquoise. right now i have a piece of wood covered in blanket fabric that i use for photography.  it's a perfect little niche to store that behind the dresser and it works for the backing right now.   

the shelves had to be cut in half though, because there was cardboard there before which was pliable.  the backer board that i replaced the shelves with was more rigid and the only way i would have been able to get them into their spot would have been to cut and remove the post in the back.

once the fabric is on the shelves, you can't tell that it isn't one piece.  

sometimes you just need to improvise to make your design plan work.

 the finish was distressed since it was so rough to begin with.  now it looks like the flaws are on purpose.....

crappy old dresser....0 dollars

beautiful storage for pretty fabric....priceless....

the fastest quilt top ever.....

well, that is the premise anyway!!  

the jelly roll 1600 quilt is comprised of a bundle of coordinating fabric pre-cut into 2 1/2 inch wide by 44 inch long strips. this is called a jelly roll.  fabric stores sell them and they run anywhere from $35 to $45 dollars.  

but with all of the lovely vintage fabric i have amassed, i cut my own strips.  so that took some time...

and then sewing them together end to end (40 of them) took some time too. 18 inches is cut off of one end.  this assures that there will be a random pattern when they are sewn together.

the resulting strip measured about 2 . 5 inches by 1600 inches.  you then join the short ends, right sides together, which is now 800 inches, and sew along the long end.  that took a really long time because it took forever to join the short ends without any twists.  it was 1600 inches long...

when you get to the fold, you cut it and join the two short ends up again 

which makes it 400 inches long. 

 this is repeated three (or four, i don't remember) more times until you are left 

with this....a cool quilt top that measures about 48 x 64 inches...

once the first side was sewn, it went pretty fast from there, about an hour and a half...

the only thing left to do is to add the batting and backing and quilt it....

                    this is the result....

 another pretty vintage sheet quilt.   now i know that most (all) of my quilts  have been some sort of strip quilt but they are the ones that go together the quickest.  i am going to attempt something different next time though.  stay tuned!!  :)

adding in even more projects...

i haven't had enough to do lately, so i thought i would take on another project.  i woke up on saturday, walked into my powder room and decided that i was sick of the black cabinet in there and took the doors off.

i figured if i started dismantling it, i would have to finish it.  it is getting a new paint job.

that lovely brass toilet paper holder got a little facelift too!

 i figured that if i was going to take on this task on the spur of the moment, it was going to have to be simple and quick.  so i broke out the chalk paint and started painting.

 i used paris grey

 and then realized that the walls are grey too....

 so.  i have another design in mind for this room.  the most changed out room in our house in the almost 12 years that we have lived here... if i am remembering correctly, this would be the sixth design change in this room.  (crickets)

fickle much??

anyway, with the walls being grey and the cabinet being grey, i distressed them a little and left them with a rather rough finish.  i love the contrast between the rough texture and the cute new knobs.  

the toilet paper holder was sprayed with a dark bronze metallic and it instantly updated it.  

bye-bye brass...hello, modern!!

i also painted the inside of the cabinet doors just for fun.  because bathrooms should be fun, right?

and my homage to harry potter...the lumos/nox light switch.  they are just scrapbooking stickers but it is a fun touch.  i have done this on a few other switch plates around the house...(and i know that the switches are really grungy and dirty but i am not sure how to clean them....a q-tip didn't fit under there and i am afraid to spray any cleaner into that area.  

you know, electrocution and all!  :)

(so if anyone knows how to clean the on/off switches, please let me know)!!

so...

my plan to finish this room off is to replace the flooring with a vintage looking tile, a board and batten treatment for the walls and paintable embossed wallpaper in a vintagy tin ceiling style for the ceiling.  i have never wallpapered a ceiling but the room is very small so i think it is doable....  

i may try a little stenciling on the walls too.  

i did finish one project that i have been working on.  this quilt was made for a very dear friend who is expecting a baby girl.  her baby shower was on sunday. 

this is the first one that i made using store bought fabrics instead of vintage sheets, although i did use one for the back of the quilt.  since it is for a baby, and babies are tactile, i wanted to incorporate as many textures as i could.

 i used linen and lace,

 flannel and fur

 and corduroy that feels like velvet....it was so soft...

i also made some coordinating burp cloths for her but neglected to take pictures of them.  

the picture below is the only one i have of them...but they were really cute....

 i loved this quilt...and so did she!

i started a part time job working a couple hours a day for a few weeks in the front office of an elementary school.  i love working with the kids and the people that work with me are great.  it is a really fun job and hopefully it will become a permanent part time job.  

i will be sharing a couple more projects that are almost finished in the next few days....