Pillow Fight!!!!

I don't know why, but I woke up today with a mission. I would MAKE PILLOWS tonight. I'm finally getting comfy in my place, and I actually have a place to use a sewing machine. I think. I'm not entirely sure how much space I'll need, but whatevs.

So, I got home from work, ran to the fabric store with Claire and got started. I had to hook up the foot pedal dealie because mine is missing that key ingredient. I actually went through the trouble of ORDERING the part weeks ago. I felt so domestic.

Anyhoozle, I hook it all up, and I'm ready to go!

Machine with working light? Check. Fabric? Check. Wine? DOUBLE CHECK. Okay, let's get started!!!!!!

Um. What do I do?

Right. Okay, download the manual. What's a foot pedal? How do I thread the bobbin? What happened to my wine?

I'm following the illustrations as best I can. I am having a surprisingly difficult time reading pictures and figure I must be missing a piece. Let's check out the toolbox...

Okay, so no help in there. All that's in this thing is a bunch of things that are supposed to replace other things. Or something. Whatever. Use your brain, Pharon! What did you learn in 7th grade??

Shockingly, I GET IT GOING. I have no idea how or why or when, but everything looked exactly like the poorly drawn pictures in the manual. Let's see it if works.

Yup. Looks perfect. I tried two lines. One went right above those words in a straight line, as expected. The second one went about 2 inches too high in a decidedly UNSTRAIGHT line. Meh, That's probably good enough.

So, a couple months ago, I made a pillow with my mom. She is really good at this stuff. She showed me how to measure and pin and backstitch and whatnot. I managed to retain almost none of that information. I just pinned two un-measured pieces of fabric together. La la la, started sewing. The lines weren't "straight" per se, but who sees the INSIDE of a pillow anyway?! The wine was helping my confidence and I stepped all the way down on the pedal, which controls the speed, and flew through the first side.

What was that my mom said about not pulling and stretching the fabric? Do it? Don't do it? I better try doing it. Oh, oops. Yeah, she said DON'T do that. Again, NO ONE sees the inside anyways.

So I get 3 1/2 side sewn up. Nice! I toast myself to my success. I flip the fabric inside out and get to stuffing it with all this random stuffing I have somehow hoarded. My mom said "Don't use stuffing. Use a real pillow. Otherwise, it'll look misshapen and be uncomfortable." Sorry, Mom, but if I don't dispose of all this hoarded stuffing material I've kept in a grocery bag in the back of my closet, Geo may break up with me.

I stuff the pillow. She's right. It looks like my pillow has tumors. And it is most definitely not comfortable. But, whatever, it's soft and fine. I sew up the rest of the pillow and voila! New pillow!

Okay, here's the real test. Below is a picture of the pillow I made with my mom, and the one I did by myself, half-buzzed, using a machine that I only barely understand.

Not bad, right?! Obvs the one on the left is the one my mom helped me with. It's smooth and straight - and I know you can't tell from a picture, but it's WAY more comfortable. The lump-fest on the right is my bastard pillow. Full of hoarded stuffing with crooked stitches. I must say, though, it doesn't look TERRIBLE. I mean, it's really pretty uncomfortable, but it LOOKS pretty good, right?!

Whatever. I think it looks great, for a n00b anyway. I'm going to toast to myself again. Cheers! Have a great weekend everyone!