Noel Pillow

Hi Friends!

One last item got crossed off the list before the New Year! Hooray!

I actually started working on it about five days before Christmas. As you might have surmised-from this post, this one, or this one (and I could find at least five more!)-once I get an idea in my head it is hard for me to move forward until that idea comes to fruition. That meant, I had to make this before I could start wrapping presents, shopping or cooking for Christmas dinner.

I finished this little piece of cross stitch two years ago but hadn't done anything with it.

It's the Noel cross stitch in the back

And I had this piece of fabric my mom's friend, Diane, had sent to me a while ago that just needed to be loved.

Don't they look nice together?

I was having a discussion with my mom over FaceTime about what to do with both of them. At first I was thinking a wall hanging but, almost simultaneously, we said "pillow." The best part was I had just bought a brand new pillow form at Goodwill for $2 and it was burning a hole in my pocket (so to speak). 

I used this YouTube tutorial and it was easy as pie. Except sometimes I can be a Grade A Idiot and I somehow messed it up (I think I didn't measure my pillow form correctly; I may have eyeballed it.) 

 I found a smaller pillow form and it was still too big so I modified it slightly by taking an inch off the whole darn thing. And it looked like this:

Not too shabby

But the back looked like this:

Not acceptable

So I added another panel to one of the envelope flaps to lengthen it and the back looked good:

Yay, I fixed it!

But....I attached the whole thing backwards and the front looked like this:

Back to unacceptable

If you can't tell, that's the back of the cross stitch. 

At this point I really was starting to question my sewing abilities.

I put it down for a night, took it apart once more and (finally) got it right. 

Close-up of the cross stitch

Here it is, in all its glory:

Finally!

I think it turned out pretty well!

I hope you are finishing some last minute crafts at home. Don't forget to submit a picture to me by December 30 and I will enter you to win a $25 gift certificate to JoAnn's.

I have some ideas for the New Year and can't wait to share them with you.

Keep on Crafting!

Kate