Union Jack 3 Piece Suit Pillow, part 3, the final product!

here is the grande finally for the union jack pillow! In case you missed it,

part 1 is here

and part 2 is here

I really like how the crown turned out, I would maybe do it in plain silver, or shiny gold next time, but I just went for it this time because I was thinking of this pillow as more of a sample then a finished product.

The crown is a little small, but I actually like how subtle it is.

The final step was just finishing. I sewed a hidden zip into the bottom while everything was still flat........ okay, I'm not sure I just described that correctly or in a way that would make sense to anyone. (of course I didn't take pictures of the process) I sewed one side of the zip to the pillow front, and the other side to the pillow back. I didn't cut the back to the exact right size before adding the zip because I think it is better to leave it a little over-sized so you can make sure it all lines up after the zip goes in. Next close your zip all the way and then fold the back and the front together with right sides together and trim the two to match each other. now you only have the remaining 3 sides to sew around. (Remember to unzip you zip a little before you go to sew around the other 3 sides, or you will end up with an inside out pillow that cannot be turned!) After sewing around the whole thing I clipped the corners so it could be turned to a finer point on the outside, and then I zig zag stitched around all the sides so it was at least a little finished on the inside even though it is just a sample.

The last step was a bit of an iron and then stuffing with a bed pillow. I am pretty happy with how this turned out, I can see some things I would change for the next one. I think the crown should be a little bigger, (or maybe do a grid of 3 or 4 of them,) I would also probably have them be shiny gold so it stands out better. I needed to be better about measuring, my slackness made the background cross not match up as perfectly as I would like but I still like the effect a lot. (oh I forgot to mention that the back is just more of the blue pinstriped wool. I think if I make another one I want to add red piping into the seam, but I knew that this one was going to for sure have a 2.0 so I decided to just finish it up.

I think the sheen on the silk ties is really lovely, and I am pretty excited about the concept. I have been crazy busy at school over the last little bit, I finally did my final makeup test from England today, so at least I am now just current work crazy rather then behind in my work crazy. I think I need to work on the cross piece angles in this pillow, since they are a little off (the red should go all the way through, and they are a little skew) but as a pattern free first attempt, I am pretty pleased. 

Oh, and I would also like to point out that I am not doing crazy Halloween sewing! Not because we don't celebrate Halloween, but remember back in June or July (mind of a sieve) when I made the kids outfits for the Avatar the Last Airbender movie? (don't feel bad if you don't remember, I didn't post picture because the kids wanted them to stay a little on the down-low before halloween.) Anyway I have been done with costumes for months, so that is exactly why I am soooooo relaxed!

Union Jack 3 Piece Suit Pillow, part 1

So while I was in England I had a fun idea for a pillow for Isaac's bedroom, I decided to make a union jack pillow with silk ties and suit fabric.

The first thing I did was get red based silk ties from the thrift store, I decided to go with 4 different ties to have a little more variety. I un-picked the back seam and then pulled out the interlining.

Next I ironed all the ties as flat as I could get them without stretching the bias at all.

I ironed interfacing to the back of the ties to stabilize the fabric since I didn't really want the bias stretch for my pillow top.

Then my rotary cutter and ruler I then trimmed all the pieces to their finished dimensions (which I am sort of winging at this point since it's just an experiment and I haven't exactly decided what the finished product will look like!)

Part 2 is here

Union Jack 3 Piece Suit Pillow, part 2

Here is part 1 in case you missed it.

 After I cut all the tie pieces to the size I wanted, I then added strips of cotton shirting material to the diagonal pieces. I could have used thrift store men's shirts here too (and I think I will for future projects because I think I would like to have a couple of slightly different shirts,) but I didn't for this project because my local Goodwill didn't happen to have any mostly white striped men's dress shirts in. In the end I just used a 1/4 yard of shirting material I got at the fabric store.

I had some blue pinstriped wool suiting in my stash, so that seemed like the perfect fit for the theme I am going with. I was still winging it so I just sort of cut some rectangles and then cut across them diagonally, I know I should have had a more scientific method then that, it just didn't happen. After I sewed the blue wool onto the strips and ironed everything I cut the rectangles to their final dimensions.

After I assembled the blue rectangle blocks I added the inside corners of the shirting material and then sewed the horizontal red stripes in the middle of 2 blue blocks, and then the vertical stripe down the middle joining up the whole thing. Next I added a thin layer of batting, some plain backing fabric, and then stitched in the ditch along all the seams.

My darling husband just bought me an embroidery machine (I coveted my mother's after we visited her this summer, and when the same one she had went on sale he picked one up for me!) I was supposed to wait until Christmas, but we are both so bad about being excited about things now, he let me have it early. I am enjoying adding little embroidered touches to things in a low key manor that doesn't involve hours of doing it by hand, I still love me some hand embroidery, but just not on everything kids related since they will probably figure out a way to outgrow or make something dirty. Anyway, sorry tangent!

I decided that with the Union Jack theme, I would add a crown to the bottom corner.

I downloaded the crown off of an embroidery website, and made it as large as I could, (I would like a bigger hoop at some point, but this one is great for now!) I was really pleased with how well my machine did sewing through all the quilted layers and over seams, I didn't use any stabilizer because I didn't think it needed it.

Here is part 3 and the finished product!

Back from England

Well, to be honest I have been back for 2 weeks, but wow did it kick my butt being gone form school for so long - I have felt very behind even though I am actually only waiting for one teacher to come back from a trip so I can do a makeup test. (I got ahead before I left and am now up to date in all of my other classes.) I had an amazing time on my trip, but I don't know that I particularly plan to blog about it. We went to a lot of museums, but had to sign wavers that we wouldn't electronically share the photos we took - and I somehow doubt many people reading this are actually that interested in 17th century embroidery and gold thread production..... Anyway one of the things that we did do that I loved was go to see the Merry Wives if Windsor at the Globe, which was fantabulous and I only wish Paul and the kids could have been there because they would have loved it! The picture is one courtesy of my friend Jen, we were at Hampton Court Palace and found a niche that looked just like something my kids would love to stand in and have their pictures taken as statues, so I of course had to fill in for them!

So I got back to school and had to jump in both feet running, I was pretty much where I needed to be with my Peruvian weaving class, but my surface design class was going to take some catching up. I had a jacket that I needed to shibori dye the fabric for and then sew for an upcoming critique and then I have a whole bunch of stencil and thermofax samples I need to get done by this next Tuesday. Paul and I had our 11th wedding anniversary on the 8th of Oct, Isaac had his 10th birthday on the 9th (we took him to Busch Gardens Europe) and then he had a friend's party on the 10th - busy, busy, busy!

I managed to get the jacket for surface design done at 4:00 a.m. the morning it was due, but don't currently have any pictures because I haven't gotten it back from grading yet. I will make sure I do a photo shoot and write up here when I do get it though. What I do have to share today are a little glimpse of my thermofax and my stencil for an upcoming project. (Paul helped me come up with a theme after a random honey discussion we had!)

I drew a nice fat bee and can I tell you just how exciting it is to see your own image made into a screen!

The stencil was pretty exciting too, I cut it out of mylar with an exacto-knife and then used a foamy roller to apply it.

We are using thickened dye to print with although I will also be experimenting with pigment too. All of the samples we are doing will lead up to a project due by the end of November, I am pretty excited about being in production with my own screen printing etc. Hooray for fun classes at school!