Is it me, or is there a mustache trend out there?
I don’t mean to put JoAnn Fabric down. Let’s face it, it’s the go-to place to buy so many items to feed your quilting-crafting-sewing hunger. Armed with those inevitable 40% off coupons, how can you go wrong? But, I must say, I was never really that enthused about their fabric selection. It tended/tends to be on the traditional (boring) end of the spectrum for me. But every once in a while, something catches my eye. A few weeks ago, after our first fall-like cool-down in the weather pattern, I was jonesing to make something Fall-y. H E L L O BURLAP FABRIC 🙂 Why, you’re not just burlap, you’re burlap with MUSTACHES printed all over you! Come with me to the cutting table why don’t you?
I had just figured out how to install an invisible zipper, so I was on an invisible zipper kick. So a plethora of pillows ensued. Here is how the burlap fabric got transformed:
Sometimes I think the staging of the things I make is as much fun as the creating process.
Mighty pleased at how my invisible zipper turned out. Yay!
This is the back of the mustache pillow. This darker fabric was also used to line behind the front of the burlap. Since the burlap fabric has lots of gaps, I didn’t want the white pillow form to show through.
After Mr. Mustache Pillow came together, I decided he was crying out for a companion. He needed something a little more Halloweenie. Jo-Ann to the rescue again! This time the burlap fabric had spiders all over it. SCORE! I made the throw pillow out of a slightly smaller size (16″ square) and added some piping-ish stuff to the edges (it reminded me of really wide shoelace material – I guess I could get up and go look at what it is called, but I’m sitting on my foot kind of funny and it fell asleep and I don’t want to go through the pins and needles phase, so sorry!) That was the trickiest part – getting the wide (1/2″) shoelace material to be a nice square on the front cover AND go around the edge of my pillow cover peacefully with the invisible zipper. But I channeled my inner Tim Gunn and had a “make it work” moment.
Using burlap novelty fabric, I created these cute throw pillows to add some Fall Decor to my fireplace hearth.
The most annoying part making these pillows? The burlap frays. Really Bad. I was fortunate that my sewing teacher loans me her backup serger. So, what do you think? What tricks do you have up your sleeve to make big seasonal changes on a tight budget? I’d love to hear your ideas 🙂
kimmartucci 