AKA... Old Dog - New Trick!
Work began today on making 60 door pillows for the Pastor's Wives Dinner at next month's conference. This was a HAPPY surprise order but boy WHAT have I gotten myself into?!
This is the final product:
I designed it using a modified version of the weekend logo:
I will show more pictures of the process later, now I want to show you something I just learned tonight!
My friend Andrea came over to give me a hand with the final steps of the pillow...the turning, stuffing, stitching closed part.
The very first words out of her mouth were, "No you did this wrong"
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
"WHAT?!!! Hey! I'm the one with 4 years of high school Home Ec. and 4 years of college Home Ec. I have a TEACHING DEGREE IN HOME EC!!! What do you mean I did it wrong!?!"
This is how we were taught to make a good corner:
DON'T DO IT THIS WAY!
Trim all seams to 1/4", taper at the corners, cut across the corner then turn and push it out with a pointed something. ..Kinda like this:...only I haven't trimmed the seams here...just angled to the point then cut across.
WRONG!!! And she proved it to me! I was shocked!
How to do it correctly:
1. All seams should be about .5"... do not taper or cut across the corner!
2. Stick your pointer finger inside the corner before turning
3. Fold the side seam in toward the pillow and hold with your thumb and the finger that is still inside the pillow
4. Fold the top seam down over the side seam and hold
5. With both fingers still "together", pull the corner through the hole you left for turning... The point will be PERFECT without poking anything into it!
Oh! I also found out tonight that Andrea's mother owned a Professional Pillow Making Business so Andrea made pillows for years!!!!
She wins....
Pin It
............
CHECK THIS OUT!!! Have you found Blitsy yet?
Up to 60% off of art/craft supplies...new sale every Monday/ Wednesday/ Friday! AMAZING!
You GOTTA try this! AMAZING!
Good luck in the sweat shop!!!
ReplyDeleteYour pillow looks marvelous. I am sure the ladies will LOVE them
And thanks for the corner tute :)
I am going to be making drapes for our soon to be renovated basement windows (maybe some pillows now too) and you have certainly inspired me.
This is FABULOUS!! Life changing even! Thank you so much for the link- If you don't mind I'm going to link to this from my blog. The pillows you are making are fantastic too! :)
ReplyDeletexoxo,
Amy
Thank you so much for sharing this! I struggle with the corners on the pillows I make!
ReplyDeleteBrandi, thanks so much for taking the time to read and comment! I PROMISE THIS IS YOUR ANSWER!...no more struggle!
ReplyDeleteExcellent idea; will certainly try it! But, what is a door pillow??
ReplyDeleteThat's an amazing trick! Thanks for posting it. I was just looking at different pillow patterns last night, so this is a blessing to me. I found you through Sew Many Ways & will be checking back again.
ReplyDeleteCathy
Hey Cat and Cathy! Thanks for stopping by and commenting! Cat, a door pillow is just a little pillow you hang on the doorknob with a ribbon (in my case anyway). It can say welcome, Baby Sleeping, child's name...whatever...just a soft little sign or decoration. Would you believe that I had to make some for a ladies bathroom because she had so many rooms no one knew where to go!!!
ReplyDeleteCathy, thanks so much for telling me where you came from! She had asked about reposting the idea but I didn't know that she had....that would explain why my little sharp corner post has suddenly popped up tons of times on Pinterest! HA! I wondered.
Hey! Great idea-coupla questions for ya tho-1.could you tack this instead of pinching- I sometimes find I didnt leave a big enough opening for all of my hand to fit into,2.Will this trick work on other projects equally as well as pillows? Thanks again!!!!
ReplyDeleteHi Finnie,
ReplyDeleteSure, you could do this with anything, not just pillows...I just mention pillows because that's what I was working on and most people can visualize what I'm talking about by just the words.
Now, I suppose you could tack it but it'll add a lot of time that, if you are like me, there is so little of when doing something like this. One thing you could do is stitch it all the way to the edge of a side. Stop, fold that edge over before stitching the next side...and sew that down at the same time you do the next side seam. Make sense, kinda hard to explain. I actually saw that done by someone "out there" (????) But that only takes care of one folding of the sides, not both.
One of my solutions for the opening is to leave it open big enough and top stitch around ALL the edges so that closing the opening will be less obvious...you can see that on my pictures.
Hope I haven't confused you more!
n
Newbie here...Just got my first email from you and love the tutorial! I am and old dog that has always done it the same way you did. I will definately be trying this new approach. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteWelcome Teri! I promise you will LOVE it! I looked around and it looks like "they" are still teaching the old way so it isn't our fault we are stuck in our old ways! I hope you look around the site, I tell lots of things I just stumble on here. I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't been too active here lately since I'm trying to actually produce something that pays the rent now! Focused on painting and doodling more right now so you'll see more activity over on Polly-Wolly Doodle...if that sort of thing interests you.
ReplyDeleten.
This is definitely an eye-opener and a game changer is my pillow covering projects! Thank you so much!
ReplyDelete