In Which the Pirate… Sews?

At Thanksgiving, the annual family reunion, one of my cousins mentioned the rainbow pillow I knit last summer. “Can you make me two of those?” he asked. I tried to explain that just the one had taken me nearly two months of crafting time. “I’ll PAY you,” he said. I asked if I could maybe sew pillows for him instead. “What’s the difference?” he asked – and with that, I knew that sewing would be just fine.

I bought pre-cut strips of fabric from Amazon:

First I pressed them flat…

…then sewed the strips together in rainbow order, and pressed the seams down. (True, pressing them all in one direction rather than open/flat might not have been the best decision. But it worked.)

From each long rainbow, I cut two squares and sewed them together all the way around, and I even managed to set in mostly-invisible zippers on the purple sides, which seem like they’d be the bottom and therefore the most hidden.

(I’m pretty pleased about the zipper.)

My cousin will be buying the inserts, because it’s way easier for me to bring him pillow cases than actual pillows. But even unstuffed, I think they look pretty good!

I usually curse and grumble a lot when I’m sewing, but this project went surprisingly well. Both pillows were done in an afternoon (I’m sure if I were better at this, it would take even less time) and I only had to rip out one super-crooked seam and try again. I even have some leftovers to play around with – not enough for a third pillow, but enough for a piece of wall-art or something. Hmmm, if I cut them on angles… and then turn one upside-down… and sew it all back together… that sounds fun, doesn’t it?