Reverse Applique Pillows

Scott (husband) is having a garden party for some business associates and is fixing up the landscaping around his office. Anyway, he asked me to make a pillow from a dish towel. After I turned on the Fleet Foxes station on Pandora (good mix of Bon Iver, Radiohead, Fleetwood Mac, Explosions in the Sky),  I squared the towel off to fit a standard pillow form, I had some leftover fabric along the bottom and I thought I could cut out some of the shapes to make a couple of reverse applique pillows to go with it.

Shapes that I cut out -

I then ironed on some medium weight one sided fusible interface to give the towel shapes some sturdiness. 

I cut out two 15 inch squares, for each pillow front.  I found the middle by ironing each front into two crosses and then laid the shape in the middle, right-side down.

I sewed around the edge of the shape, about 1/4" from the edge.

This is what it looks like on the front.

I then snipped a hole in the brown fabric in the middle-ish of the shape. And then I cut around the whole thing, inside the stitching about 1/4 inch.

This is what it looked like.

After that I made two panels for the back.

The panels overlap so I could slip the pillow form in.

I laid the pillow top down first, facing up, then the longest panel facing down, then the short panel on top. Pinned them all together and stitched all way around. Then put in the form.

Here are all the pillows lined up on the garden bench.

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Pillows and a Night Light Rug

 I made a 20 inch by 20 inch yo-yo pillow with scraps leftover from some napkins and such. It's a pretty easy pillow to make, all the circles and connecting the circles don't require a sewing machine, so it's perfect for Olympic viewing.

I also made a monogrammed 18 inch by 18 inch burlap pillow. I washed the burlap in a bucket, it frays really bad and I was worried about jamming up my washing machine.  I washed it a couple of times as well as let it sit out in the monsoon rains. I also sprayed it with some homemade fauxbreeze to help with the smell as well as soften it a bit.  I couldn't print an H big enough, so I printed it as big as I could on a 8.5 x 11, and then decided the ratio and then taped off the straight lines with painters tape and drew out the rest of the border with a Sharpie. I sponge-painted on the burlap with acrylic paint combined with fabric medium, 1 to 1 ratio.  Then I zig zagged it to a muslin backing, and made an envelope pillow with black fabric at the back. 

The combination by day.

 The rug by night.

The rug was a bit of a project, but I really liked how it turned out.
Materials:
4 rope lights
7-9 100 ft clothesline ropes ( I actually can't remember, I got them at our local dollar store)
large crochet hook (the largest you can find)

I was inspired by http://topstail.com/diy-area-rug-led-floor-lamp-bright-white-carpet-light, but I have had little to no experience with crocheting.  Well I consulted a very helpful neighbor as well as looked for specific directions here. Once on that website, you can click on google preview, scroll to page 14-15 to see how to do it specifically. It's not that hard once you get the hang of it.  You just need to add a quick chain/running stitch every now and then as you expand the circle so your rug doesn't turn into a basket. Also the hardest part is at the beginning, but after the first 3-4 circumferences it gets together. I didn't take any pictures of the progress as I wasn't very confident on how it would turn out. Pin It