Using Goodwill Sheets for Awesomeness

I'm not sure if you remember my very brief exclamations regarding my new found love and obsession with Goodwill sheets...they are what I used to make my rag rug and my pillow yesterday.  I'll let you in on my little secret: $2 Goodwill sheets (once washed in very hot water and dried) provide yards and yards of fabric that you can dye any color you want!!

So, after buying 4 queen and king size sheets for the rag rug, I had quite a lot of leftover fabric. Yesterday I used some that I had dyed blue for the backing of my bird printed pillow. Today I am showing a new pillow that I used a white sheet for piping and the sheet I dyed yellow.  Cheapest fabric ever!

After making my very first piping (much easier than I thought it would be!), I made an envelope case and stuffed my pillow in. That's when I realized that I made the pillow case waaaay too large. So, I plopped myself down in front of the television and spend the night ripping seams out.

Luckily my ruler was behaving better the next morning (of course it was the ruler's fault!) and the second time was the charm.

To emphasize the crisp white piping, I decided to add some white french knots to the pillow and love the texture they created.

No More Hording Fabric

I have a minor issue with falling in love with things (girl scout cookies, the best greeting card ever, amazing fabric my mom sent me) and being scared that I won't find the perfect person to send the perfect card to or the perfect evening to scarf down the perfect cookies...or the perfect project to use the most perfect fabric on.

My mother sent me a surprise package this summer with some leftover fabric from one of her sewing projects. The moment I opened the box I fell madly in love with the print and immediately put it in the closet because I wouldn't be using the fabric for just anything - I had to find something worthy of this fabulously colorful, bird-filled fabric.

Fast forward three months and it was still sitting in my closet. I'd venture in there every once in a while to bat my eyelashes at the hummingbirds and flowers and promise to find something suitable to use it for. Last week I finally came to my senses and decided to make a regular ol' pillow with it because then I'd get to enjoy the beautiful print all day every day.

I grabbed the last of the upcycled pillows I made last spring (check out the camping pillows I made here) and went to work on an envelope pillow case.  Now that I think of it, this is the ultimate upcycled project - the pretty bird fabric is leftover scraps from my mother, the backing fabric is leftover Goodwill sheets from my rag rug project, the pillow is an upcycled old feather pillow from our bed...pretty cool!

In order to make an envelope pillow case, I measured the pillow, added a couple inches, and cut out a square in the bird fabric that would be the front of the pillow.  For the back, I subtracted about six inches from one side and cut out two identical rectangles.

After hemming the two blue rectangles on one side, I sewed the pillow together.

And voila!

The perfect fabric turned into a colorful throw pillow.

Owners Manual

I just spent thirty minutes reading our washing machine's owners manual, ten minutes reading and re-reading the directions on the back of the RIT dye box, and twenty minutes on the phone with my mom all to figure out why, with a tub of blue dye, my washing machine suddenly decided to stop working. 

I decided to forge ahead thinking, "Well, my machine is full of bright blue dye, I may as well use it before freaking out" and started using metal tongs to agitate and mix my fabric in the clear, bright blue water.  During brief breaks (because the RIT dye box warns you must have the fabric agitating constantly for 30 to 60 minutes) I stood baffled in front of my washing machine wondering what went wrong. I was worried to push too many buttons out of fear it would reset, empty the water and dye from the tub, and begin anew and so I kept agitating my fabric. 

After 60 minutes I finally decided it was time to show the machine who was boss (there was nothing to lose if and when the machine showed me who was boss) and started by shutting the lid of the washer so I could get a good look at the many buttons.  The moment the lid clicked shut I began to feel vibrations, the machine began moving, and I heard the agitation of the wash cycle begin.

Yes, I know that my washer's lid must be shut in order for the washing cycle to run. Yes, I know the moment I open the lid, it pauses. Yes, I know I wasted over an hour baffled while staring, with the lid open, at the blue sea of water.

I'm sitting on the couch now, listening to the washing cycle make it's little noises while typing with bright blue hands because I hadn't remembered about my yellow rubber gloves until just now. Perhaps I could just start this Monday over again? Can I get a re-do, please?