Pillow Talk

So what do you do when you only have one of these and three windows. If you are lucky enough to have a friend that sews you have them turn them into pillows. I spent my afternoon doing just that. A good friend of mine is having a baby and the bedding set she bought came with a valance. Just one small problem. She has three windows in the room and no room for hardware. Not to mention the staggering $60 a piece for the valances, odd shaped second story windows, and no where to put a rod at the top of the window. So she asked me if I could make it into a pillow for the single bed that is also in the nursery. She isn't picky so the only directions she gave me where to do something. At first she asked if we could just sew the ends shut and stuff it full of polly-fil. I thought we might be able to so something a little better than that.



I didn't anticipate having nearly as many problems with this simple request as I encountered. I thought two throw pillows would whip up in no time. I was right once I finally got my plan down. But there were a few issues. First once I took the valance apart I realized there wasn't as much workable fabric as I thought. So I dug threw my teeny tiny stash (I'm a newbie to this remember) but I had ordered some fabric from a great little shop a while back and because I LOVE polka dots I decided that I would order a few as stash enhancers. So enter the brown with white polka dots. It might be important to tell you that in case you can't see so well in the pictures the middle of the flowers are brown with green polka dots and oh by the way her nursery walls are painted glow in the dark pink.



The white quilted fabric from the original valance is very stretchy and it gave me a bit of a hard time in keeping everything square but I think it turned out okay in the end. I was planning on getting some white Kona Cotton out of a bag that I had for another project when I came across the pink and green plaid. I thought it would be great for the back so I used it on the back of the first one.


It is a simple envelope flap back so that she will be able to remove them and wash them if she ever has to but I doubt there will be a need since they are throw pillows but with a baby, two dogs, and a husband I guess you never know. Although I guess I better advise her to use a color catcher if she ever does cause who knows what will happen to that bright pink from the manufacturer. All in all I thought they turned out pretty good but my husband was running out the door to have dinner with her husband as I was putting the last stitch in the second one so I really didn't get to look them over all that well at the end and I was lucky to get photos. She did call though and she is thrilled so they must have made it safely to her and they must not look to bad.