She ain't no Giotto

In preparation to sew some over-sized throw pillows for my couch, I thought I would do a practice run.

I grabbed some cheap fabric at JoAnn's, threaded up the machine and set out to work. I grabbed the largest clean flat item I could find to cut on--a large cardboard box--then carefully 'measured' the fabric to find equal sized, square fourths. Easy math: pull one corner of the fabric to the opposite corner, repeat. Cut along long-edge of remaining triangle. Unfold. Fold in half, then in half again. Okay, good JaNelle. Now I am looking at a four layer folded square of fabric about 2'x2'. Then the hard part: I wanted a circle pillow!

I thought about how to make a circle, like what patterns could I find around the house...a trashcan! no. A large platter? no, nothing big enough. YES! The wok! NO!!! It has a handle that makes it not work. Que sera..we do this in theatre all the time with a screw and a piece of string. After shooing the dog away (many times) I came up with a crude compass, and started circling from the center-ish out, leaving what looked like a 5 year old trying to make her first crayola dixie cup outline. I looked at the corner I like the best, cut the arch, then folded that up to the top to make a semi-circle. NOT! Then I folded all of it into 1/4 pie shapes and cut through 8 layers of edges, revealing what looks more like a football than anything else. Note to readers: no my mother did NOT teach me to measure, cut, sew or otherwise in this terrible way. So short of darts it really bunched together pretty nasty. The edges are wonky, it's just all over pretty bad. Then I stuffed it (lexi=heaven) and had to sew it shut, by hand :-/

All in all, I am very glad I decided to practice, because BOY DID I NEED IT! And even though my pillow looks like that sad football-head shaped kid from my childhood afternoon cartoons, I made it. And I have decided to watch a few more eHow tips on how to sew the pillow shut. I think I can handle this.

Carpe Pillow!