Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Pillow Talk, VintageBeef Style

Funny story.  I used to try and learn one new craft per year.  Past crafts have included:

- iron-on t-shirt images
- hand-sewn teddy bears
- fleece pillows
- jewelry making
- book binding

I still have many supplies in my attic from these past attempts.  When I was having my tunic for cold LARP events made, I went up to get Penelope, my duct tape bust model (who is about 20 lbs smaller than I am now).

For some unknown reason, I decided to rummage around in my other craft supply boxes while I was up there.  (Seriously, the precise reason escapes me.)

And I found four 14" pillow forms from a craft session I had participated in when I worked for the university as a cafeteria hostess.  We had made a throw pillow for each of our student managers as gifts (maybe Christmas gifts?), and then I had offered to take the extras home.

So, three years later, they were still in their shrink-wrapped plastic bags.

And I said to myself...hmm.

Pillow covers are nothing more than two flat panels stitched together at all four edges.

So I did a few measurements, and came up with a double-sized estimation for the first panel:

Since VintageBeef is my most requested plushie
(and I had the yarn handy) I gave it a shot.

When I finished the panel, I noticed it was at least an inch or so short of being tall enough.  (Uh oh!)  I added another row of brown at the top, but I wasn't going to frog the entire panel and try to make it taller.  I decided to wait, do the back, and try it anyway.  Crochet is somewhat stretchy, right?

The back:

Legolas' Elven Focus cannot be interrupted.

And the front of the finished product:


I have no idea whether or not adding one extra row of single crochet at the top of each panel helped at all, but I know that seaming the panels on the outside was a definite good call.  I used slip stitches (3 per corner) on the left, bottom, and right sides before inserting the pillow form.  Then I had to continuously squish the pillow down inside while slip stitching the top shut.  I chose to use the coffee-colored yarn all the way around for the border, because it was the most dominant color.  Plus, using more than one color would have caused structural weaknesses in the seaming--more knots to come unraveled.

Easy peasy!  The pillow is up for sale in my Etsy store!

Ooh, and I also made a tweet:



And the tremendous Mr. Beef himself favorited and replied:



FANGIRL FIESTA!

Of course.

Now I'm pondering the wisdom of dressing up my PauseUnpause plushie in a Halloween costume for "teh lulz" as the kids say, and tweeting the picture out on Friday.  Hmm...must ponder.

Later!

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