A Plethora of Pillows

I love the colors of fall, all the golds, shades of red and orange and lime greens, now almost gone from our November landscape.  This autumn has been spectacular (according to a local newpaper item it had to do with warm days and cool nights) and I brought those colors into our home with new pillows for our living room and family room.  My other laptop is under the weather (and most likely dying as I type) so my careful construction pictures may be lost but hey, these are pillows and the fitting is easy. 

I've been collecting some inexpensive autumn toned home dec fabrics throughout this year.  Some come from the Joann's red tag fabrics when they have a 50% off sale.  The others came from a September visit to the PA Fabric Outlet near Lancaster, PA.  This warehouse type store has a large decorator section with leftovers stuck on very short rolls in large barrels.  I picked up three rolls for $5.98 total with about six or seven yards of the three fabrics so this was not an expensive seasonal update.  I also buy zippers there and the 12-14 inch invisible zippers sell for less than $1.  

I cut the striped fabric into quarters then rearranged them to form that new pattern.  It's a flange pillow but I want it to be a reusable pillow form so there's a back flap with velcro to keep it closed and snug.  I hate pillow covers that don't have a closure like that since the cover grows and looks sloppy very quickly. 
I have enough leftover for a table runner and will probably arrange those stripes in another interesting pattern.
The geometric pillow with buttons on the left has gold silk dupioni piping and an invisible zipper.  I liked watching the youtube from Haberman fabrics on inserting an invisible zipper on a pillow with welting.   

That orange ribbon pillow is one I made last year with a ribbon weaving technique and I am happy to say that we use it throughout the year and it has held up wonderfully.

This next pillow has some sentimental memories for me.  I remember my mother wearing an Asian style jacket in the 50's when I was very young.  I inherited the jacket, too small for me (I was taller than my mother by 6th grade) but I always wanted to do something with the fabric.  I'm glad I didn't cut it up in my short attempt at wearable art pieced garments about 14 years and 25 lbs ago.  Instead, this year it became part of our inside autumn toned pillow collection.  I used a piece of remnant orange tweed home dec fabric from that Joann's clearance table and made a window to highlight the silk brocade then pieced together the remaining brocade for piping.  It needed a little more to bring out the 50's vibe I wanted to keep so I added some dark rust trim around the edge and I think it looks rather retro vintage-y.

On our way out to western Maryland in October we stopped at the new to me Surplus City again, the combination fabric store/hardware store.  Yes, a store for me and Mr. Lucky under one roof!  They too carry mostly home dec fabrics at very low prices and I bought this leaf design for $5.99 a yard.  I did the same quartering and I like the image of leaves falling in all directions.

This last autumn glory pillow is the longest one in the making.  It started with scraps of a poly print that a sweet sewing friend (hi, Kathie) gave me when she moved to Nebraska 18 months ago.  I used my die cut machine and a five layered flower die to cut out the flower shapes, then held each edge to a candle flame to curl them and then layered them together.  TV project.  Can you tell that Mr. Lucky and I spend a lot of time in the evenings watch PBS shows like Endeavor, Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries and Call the Midwife?  I used two layers of a rusty orange poly from another Joann's clearance table and put the flowers on the front, topped with wooden beads for some more color and texture and another invisible zipper.  I enjoy seeing these two pillows together with their sentimental reminders of special women.

Sewing pictures are done but for my friends and family, here come some shots from several of our fall trips.  
In the middle of October we headed to Western Maryland for a "refresher" weekend for Mr. Lucky.  he is a ski patrol volunteer in the winter and this was a weekend where he was one of the instructors for the medical refresher training for the team of five dozen volunteers.  We stopped along the way for a hike along the glorious 

The following week we took our neighbor's sweetest Golden Retriever (we were pet sitting for a few days) to Pennsylvania to pick our last batch of apples for the season.  

Maple Lawn Farms, PA

Yes, those observant sewing friends who are still reading will note that it is yet another Tabula Rasa tunic top that I am wearing.  About 1/4 of those apples are now in small jars labeled "Caramel Apple Butter"....made this year by Mr. Lucky himself!
Two weekends ago we drove from the Baltimore area down Rt 81 to reach Greenville, SC where a cousin of mine had a wonderful wedding weekend for his daughter.  It was the first big family gathering since my aunt's death this summer and we honored her memory while enjoying a happier reason for gathering.  Along the drive we stopped and hiked Crowder's Mountain just south of Charlotte, NC.  

Crowders Mountain, NC

We made a long weekend of it and spent Sunday night in Roanoke so we could drive a little bit of the Blue Ridge Parkway/Skyline Drive on the way back to Baltimore.  By now, most of the mountain top trees are bare but those in the foothills still have some of those wonderful colors.  

Shenadoah Valley

Here's hoping you have a colorful weekend of sewing and other fun activities on your calendar.