leftovers

Whenever I finish a project, there are usually leftovers of one kind or another. In the past, I have just boxed things up and stashed them away, but the recent clean-out of the spare room may just have cured me from that habit. New habit I'm trying to form: using the leftovers to make another fun project right away.

Saving things for later seems like the right thing to do, but when you have as many different kinds of hobbies as I have, and when you tend to forget down the road where the leftovers are or whether you have them at all, you end up buying new stuff each time anyway. Wasteful. Makes storage areas messy, too, and then when you're pulling stuff out to donate, you start adding up in your head the money you spent . . .

The Halloween costume project this year meant leftovers of several kinds: felt and fake fur, most obviously. With Christmas coming up, I thought I'd take some of the stuff and make something cute with it for my kiddo.




Voila! Monster pillows!

To start, I cut the largest rectangle I could from the leftovers of a remnant of faux fur used for the tail of my son's Halloween costume. The pillow pictured is made with a piece that measured about 13 x 25 inches. (Folded in half and stitched, it made a nearly-square pillow approximately 12 x 12 inches.)

Next, I planned the face, and cut face parts out of leftover red, orange, ivory, and charcoal gray felt. I stitched the layers together, then planned where they should go on the pillow (not too close to the edges, and not to close to where the fold would go at the top of the pillow). You can pin your pieces in place; I just free-handed, because I wasn't too picky about having the face end up perfectly placed. I think it looks a little sillier slightly off-kilter.

Using my machine, I stitched around the face pieces close to the edges, attaching them to the fur.

Then, I clipped my threads, made my fold so that the furry sides were together, and stitched around all of the open edges, leaving a space open to turn the pillow right-side out and stuff it. I stuffed it full of fluff, then hand-stitched the opening closed.




I may have a hard time keeping this guy (and his soon-to-be siblings!) out of sight until Christmas. He already looks quite at home in the nursery chair.




(p.s. you can make these photos bigger by clicking on them . . . but you probably knew that!)


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