Keeping Busy

Since the outside is rather unwelcoming for any activity, I have done my best to keep myself occupied inside. I started out the year with great plans to print out my blog, bind it myself and then make a clam shell box that each book/year would fit into. I was so excited to start! However, I have found it quite difficult to find someone online that will let me do some editing on my blog, and then sell me a high resolution pdf copy of it. In other words, they want me to buy their books, not make my own. I have been hitting dead ends, wherever I turn. I haven't given up yet, but I have put it on the back burner at least for now until I can figure something out.

Instead, I decided to do a little sewing. Now don't laugh too hard! Truthfully, I don't sew and it has never really interested me. But I do have a sewing machine. Actually I take that back. Scott has a sewing machine that he bought at Costco several years ago. I will occasionally drag it out to sew on a Scout patch or two. A couple months ago, I even taught myself how to hem my own jeans, but that is about it.

Back to the reason of my decision to sew. Several months ago we had the remainder of our cabinetry installed in our house. This included a lovely bench/cabinet combo in my kitchen. I had the bench made a bit deeper so that I could put throw pillows on it at some point. Recently, I had a lady in my neighborhood sew a cushion for it.

For about a month I put some old pillows on the bench just for kicks. I noticed that other than getting a bit smushed, the boys left them alone. I was quite surprised, because every time I have put throw pillows on my couch, I end up picking them off the floor so many times within a few days, that I give up and put them in the closet. I understand now why they are called "throw" pillows.

So, I decided that now was as good as anytime for pillows, and I was going to sew them. I did what anybody does when they want to learn something new. I read and watched a couple of tutorials online. Instead of sewing an envelope case, I even decided to learn how to put in an invisible zipper. I know...fancy. I then took my measurements and my coupons and went and bought my fabric.

I started with the cheapest fabric and made this one. It took a couple of head scratches, studying the instructions and unpicking half of the zipper, but I figured it out! And you know what? The thing even zipped up when I was done! I must admit, I was kind of surprised. And it didn't turn out that bad.

Then it was pretty easy and I whipped out the kitchen ones pretty fast. They are not perfect by any stretch, and I would hate to have anyone who knows what they are doing inspect them, but I think they turned out pretty well! Now I just need a few stains and grease marks to break them in.

Here is a pix of the whole thing.

And last but not least, the boys settling in.

Now, on to the next project!