Envelope Pillow DIY

Work has been so busy that I haven't really had a free moment to make a post this week, but I did want to put up a tutorial for the pillow I made a couple of weeks ago, aka the pillow that was so quick to make that I was able to get the whole thing done in the time it took Todd to make a run to Lowe's.

The final product:

First, I picked up a .99 pillow at a thrift store.  I put it in the dryer at high heat for about an hour,  washed it, and dried it again at high heat. At that point, I generally consider it "clean," especially since it will be covered with fabric.

Next, I selected my fabric.  I had a few yards of red cotton fabric that perfectly matched a button-up shirt that Todd couldn't wear because the arms weren't long enough.  I cut out a big square from the shirt back and ironed it.

I wanted to make an "envelope pillow," or a pillow with an opening in the back so I could slide the pillow form in and out, either to wash or switch out the cover.  I wanted to red fabric to be the back, so I took a large piece, laid it over my pillow form, and cut a rough shape, making sure the finished piece was several inches longer than the pillow itself.  This shape was then cut in half.  No measurements...basically, you want each half to have an 'overhang' of about 2 inches.  You'll give each of these halves a tidy hem.  One hemmed part will lay over the other hemmed part with enough coverage so that the pillow form can't be seen.

Then you pin the whole thing together and sew all the way around.  Just make sure you have that overlap. 

Turn it right-side out, insert the pillow form, and you're done!  Because I'm partial to buttons on pillows, I used my rotary cutter to slice off the button band from the front of the shirt.  I sewed it onto the pillow front - just one side. The shape of the pillow helps it to lay flat. 

Because I didn't measure, the back has a little wave when empty...

...but it's fine when I put the pillow inside.

It was really quick and easy.  Now that I'm amassing quite a collection of fabric, it will be easy for me to make multiple pillow cases and swap them out with the changing seasons.  Inexpensive, too...I'm sure this pillow didn't cost more than $3 for all materials used!  I can't wait to make more.

Have a great week!

Our November Color Wheel

I love the colors of autumn in the South.  You've got your traditional reds, browns, yellows, and oranges...

But you also have unexpected splashes of pink, white, and green.  The camellias are just starting to bud out, and what beauties we have this year!

Lovely creamy orange ginger lilies are still holding up their heads...

...and we've got more nice spheres of white all around our front door.

The fir trees are setting up their cones, which are light green, all over the yard.

We even have a few late-season zinnias still producing!

Somehow these odd blends of colors go together well and produce a very pleasing appearance in our late November yard.  And those branches of yellow leaves on our driveway?  I picked them all up, of course, and made big bouquets.

It's especially nice when the late-afternoon sun comes slanting in the windows...

Love!

I haven't had much time for crafting lately.  This is my busy season and I'm generally working 9 hour days (or longer) on my business.  However, I gave myself a day off this weekend and made a quick and festive plaid pillow in about 30 minutes. 

I will post a tutorial later.  I'll be making plenty more of these!

I've also been baking like crazy!  In preparation for Thanksgiving, and some extra for Todd's office, I baked about 7 batches of cookies, 2 loaves of pumpkin bread, and a plate of cheesecake bars in the past week alone.  Our freezer is fairly bursting!  I haven't had any myself, though...not one single bite.  I'm not there yet, but I'm officially nearing the end of my "six weeks of no sugar" plan, and I'm ready to wax philosophical about it. 

I've always been crazy about sugar.  I love to bake, and sweet treats are my favorite.  I crave sugar all the time, and in the past have tried to limit my consumption to a few servings a week, although that tended to grow when I was cranky, tired, busy, or stressed.   I noticed that I gained weight this past spring and early summer, and I knew there was a direct correlation between the amount of sugar I was eating and the number on the scale.  I have always been too afraid to limit my sugar - what else is left?  What about my baking? It's just too hard!  I'm fond of saying, too, that I don't want to live in a world where I couldn't have a cupcake when I wanted one.  Six weeks, though, seemed manageable. 

I stopped eating all sweets - cupcakes, ice cream, candy, pie, cookies, bars, syrups, etc.  I allowed myself 1 TB of honey a day and WHATEVER ELSE I WANTED THAT WASN'T SUGAR.  I had tried to be relatively low-carb before, but now I embraced them.  Oatmeal every day!  An occasional sandwich...with bread!  Roasted potatoes!  I didn't really miss the sugar because I so enjoyed my meals.  I had other pleasant side effects to help me along:  I suddenly started having higher-quality sleep.  No more waking up at 3 a.m. and reading for an hour - I slept all the way through the night.  I had more energy and felt better.  A weird but definitely welcomed side effect was weight loss.  Sugar triggers me to eat a lot, so take out the trigger, and my eating naturally moderated.  I lost 8 pounds in 5 weeks, doing nothing different except removing sugar from the equation.  I bounced back up a couple of pounds recently, but I realized that my desire to eat has become so quiet, and I've been so swamped with work, that I've been forgetting to eat like I should.  Not eating enough + regular vigorous exercise = weight gain.  I'm happily eating an extra 200 calories today!

With all of these wonderful discoveries, will I ever go back to sugar?  Oh, yeah!  My six weeks are up on Thanksgiving and I plan on having several cookies and a big piece of pie.  But I won't stay on sugar.  I've decided to live one week on sugar/three weeks off sugar every month.  I'll have a few days a month when I can get an ice cream cone, have a brownie, and make a big cookie sandwich dripping with homemade buttercream filling.  I'll have a week where I won't sleep as well, won't feel as well, and won't perform as well at the gym.  Then I'll have three weeks where I will.  I think it's a nice, tidy ratio and I look forward to putting it into place after my Thanksgiving week!

Happy eating!

Fog-et About It

We never had much fog in Indiana, so I was thrilled the other morning when I glanced up from my morning cereal and saw this:

I left my Raisin Bran to get soggy and rushed outside.

My understanding is that fog forms with rapid cooling and high humidity, but this was actually somehow the result of a cool night and rapidly warming temperatures.  Wait, is that the same thing?  :)

It was a great day.  I went outside and gathered up more flowers.

I'm so in love with Helleborus.

I made bouquets for the bedroom...

And, with the shorter flowers, a long piece of tape to give them stability, and a square, Crate and Barrel-knockoff vase I found at Goodwill, I made a little bouquet for the dining room.

I just love having bulbs on the table.  It makes every day feel more spring-like, even cold, windy ones like today.

Last year, I remember going to Eagle Creek with Todd and seeing something new every week.  First the undergrowth started greening up, then we started seeing early spring flowers like trilliums and mayapple stems, and then the Virginia Bluebells started coming up...well, we don't have a hiking place yet here, so I am making careful observations in our yard.

More bulbs!  This, I think, is a hyacinth.

The snowflake flowers are blooming endlessly.

The crocuses are coming up, too!

We have several azalea bushes, and a few of them are tentatively budding out.  Just one or two flowers can be seen so far.

I think we have several white azalea bushes, too, that look ready to go:

Suddenly, some sort of tiny sedum is growing around the low rock wall behind the house.

And,  a mystery groundcover is pushing up over the leaves.

I was very glad to find this in the front yard:

It's a wild turkey feather.  I used to see the turkeys almost daily in the fall, but have only seen them a handful of times since Christmas.  This feather tells me that they may be roosting in our trees at night, which they tend to do to avoid predators.  Just because we can't see them, doesn't mean that they aren't there!

I wasn't so happy to find this in the yard:

I'm nearly certain that this hole was made by a chipmunk, which can devastate a garden.  I'll have to keep an eye on this area.

This wide, flat rock shows me that probably a squirrel, or perhaps a chipmunk, was eating here recently.

I was pleased to see this puffball mushroom in the yard, too.  I think they're so pretty.

Supposedly most puffballs are safe to eat, depending on the color of their insides.  However, I'm much too afraid to risk it!

I've been hearing a lot of hooting lately, but was unable to catch a glimpse of the owl. 

Mystery hooting

Using online sources, I was able to narrow it down to either a Barred Owl or a Great Horned Owl.  The other evening I was out in the yard, and happened to look up.  I saw two owls in a tree above my head, mating!  I rushed to get my camera.  Alas, I just got a quick, blurry shot of one of them.

Actually, this was incredibly helpful in solving the owl identity mystery.  These owls had smooth, rounded heads, and Great Horned Owls have big tufts of feathers on either side of their head.  Mystery solved:  they're Barred Owls.

I love these little trips around my yard.  Each time, it seems like there's something new!

I've been working on a few projects indoors.  I'm knitting a pair of mittens that I've started many times, only to put away.  Using size 1 needles and worsted weight yarn makes my wrists ache, but if I can just get past the cuffs, I think it will be better.

A quick sewing project:  I found a pretty tea towel in the discount bin at IKEA for $2.

I folded it over, stitched around the edges, and stuffed it with some stuffing that I already had.  Two dollars for a cute and easy throw pillow?  Not bad!

I haven't done too much new baking, but I've been revisiting some old recipes.  I couldn't believe how long it's been since I made a pumpkin roll.

They're easy to make and this is a "healthy" version.  I blogged about it here, but I think this one is even better.  I left out the lemon juice...added 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon, cardamon, and nutmeg, and 1/4 teaspoon of cloves and ginger, instead of the pumpkin pie spice...I used 8 oz. of neufchatel cheese and NO yogurt, sour cream, or crystallized ginger, and gave the filling a good dash of cinnamon.  Otherwise, it's the same.  Hey, I even used the same towel!  I hope you give it a try.  It was SUCH a nice treat this week.

Enjoy!