Showing posts with label Dropcloth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dropcloth. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Simple Sewing: HTV Drop Cloth Pillows


My sewing skills are not even skills IMO. I can do straight lines and manage some curved things (barely). I won't even attempt any apparel.  

Should have listened to the Mumster and stuck with the sewing classes. At any rate, I can manage some pillows but hadn't tackled pillow covers. It got silly just making new pillows vs changing the covers, so before Christmas I finally tackled this. What a dummy! Why didn't I do this sooner?! It was so ( no pun intended) EASY! Thanks to Pinterest, I found this tutorial from Apartment Therapy and if I can do it, anyone can! 

It was fabulous taking the Christmas decor down knowing I could slide the covers I made off the pillows and make new covers. Look out she's dangerous now! 



Supplies: 
  • HW Store Drop Cloth. I got mine at Home Depot.
  • HTV Vinyl. I used Siser Easy Weed
  • Images. Mine were from the Silhouette Store $.99 ea
  • Digital Cutter. I used my Cameo 3
  • Pillow Forms. Mine are 16x16 ( JoAnn's when they were 50% off)
  • Basic sewing supplies, thread, pins etc. 


Wash dropcloth and then cut to size based on tutorial instructions and size of your pillow form.   Even if you can't sew perfect seams, they're on the back of the pillow so who cares?! 


This is what the back will look like when you're done. 


Here's the opening through which you put your pillow form. Et voila!

Once the pillow covers were done, I chose my designs, sized and cut them using my Cameo 3 and Siser Easy Weed Heat Transfer Glitter Vinyl. I LOVE THIS STUFF!!! It really is easy weed ( weeding is the removal of the parts you don't want, revealing the image you're using) but for some reason the "E" in the "HOME" pillow decided not to cut cleanly so I had to do some work w/ my X-acto knife. 

REMINDER: if you're using words , remember to mirror your file before you cut. The great thing about the Cameo 3 is that if you've chosen HTV as your material, the software will prompt you to choose "mirror". Whew! 


Here are the ones I made for Christmas: 



For these I used polar fleece and flannel (backed with Iron On Pellon) for the images, also from the Silhouette Online Store.





Monday, February 13, 2017

Bead Embroidery: Angel Wing Pillow


I mentioned last month I was on a wing kick with projects like this and this. I finished the top of this pillow last monthy but finally got around to assembling it this weekend. I am NOT a seamstress! Sewing straight lines (questionable) is about my level of expertise. But it's done and I love it and the materials used sum up my style: a mix of rustic everyday materials and glam.

Supplies: 
  • Fabric

This is the rustic part. I bought a couple of fabric drop cloths in the paint department at my big box HW store a few years ago and I'm still using them for things. So yes, this pillow is made from painter's drop cloth but of course you could use anything! 

  • Beads
This is the "glam" part since I used a combination of antique French seed beads and metallic gold beads. I became enamored of bead embroidery last year at an art show and am working on my skills!


Process: 
I cut the dropcloth to the approximate size I wanted my pillow. Cut out the front and the back at the same time. Set the back aside. 

I freehand sketched the wing using plain old pencil, then started attaching the larger "outline" beads. I can see for some where bead embroidery would make people stressed but for me, it's kinda therapeutic. I think it's the repetition. And I will never be someone who's going for absolute perfection with each and every stitch and bead being uniform. 


After outlining, I beaded each of the sections with smaller beads and then finally filled in each section with the smallest beads.  You can see where some of my lines squiggle but I've found that you can fix this when you start filling in with other beads. The weight / pressure from the other beads will kind of straighten things out. It's a journey so practice practice practice! 


The dropcloth fabric fits perfectly with the fabric of my sofa and side chair. You can see another of my pillow projects (from waaaayyyy back ) in the background!

To finish, I stitched the top and bottom together, turned, stuffed and finished by hand.