A Little Something For Myself

The woman at school who thinks I can sew like magic put me to work once again.  After I made the most expensive dog bed in the world, she asked me to make cushions for two rocking chairs.  This should have been a no brainer, but as always with this woman, there was a twist.

Instead of getting foam just the right size for her chairs, she took apart some piece of furniture and used a kitchen knife to cut the foam to an approximate imitation of the shape of the chairs.  She handed me two pieces of chair sized foam and 3 rectangular shape cubes and some fabric and told me to have at it.

What she didn't make clear to me was that both of the chair cushions were to be cut the same size but she only cut one.  I was supposed to cut the other.  I must have been taking a powder during that part of the conversation because I knew nothing about it.  The big rectangle was my favorite one and I was pretty sure it was the best cushion I've ever made.

The rounded one for one chair and the 3 cubes were all finished way back in the fall, but she handed me back the rectangle and asked me to reconstruct it.  Oh and at that point, she had sent the right sized cushion with one chair to Florida, so we had to guesstimate.

And by we, I mean me.

And by guesstimate, I mean to took a pencil and stood in her office and drew an arc and said "like this?" and she said "exactly".

And for months, it has sat in my sewing room.  I was afraid to attack it and cut the foam too small.  And, I don't have any knives in my kitchen that I was willing to sacrifice to cut foam.  Foam freaks me out with all of its chemicals so no regular food knife was going near it.

It took her until last week to realize she hadn't paid me and I hadn't asked for payment because technically, I wasn't done since I had to reconstruct the one pillow.  She brought in a check, so I felt like I had to really get on it.

After cutting the foam, the reconstruction of the cover was marginally easy but I wasn't impressed with any of this, as I had been with the original rectangle.  I'm not a professional so I really have no idea what I'm doing and I wing anything that goes into and comes out of my sewing machine!

The bonus of this project is that I have a little fabric leftover.  It's some sort of outdoor fabric, so it was perfect to make a new bag for my clothespins.

The last one was also from a pillow project, but for a different woman.  It's pretty old and has seen better days, so I was thrilled to replace it.

I sat at my serger, ready to whip up my new bag, and it started giving me trouble again.  The thread broke every 2 inches.  I rethreaded the needle again and again and though it had worked just beautifully for the pillow, it refused to cooperate for the bag.  Same material, same thread, really no excuses.

I fought with it for about an hour and gave up, determining I'd have to have it repaired again.  But, I waited until daylight and tried again and after a ridiculous amount of attempts, I finally took out all of the thread, rethreaded and off it went, like butter.

So, pillows complete, check is in the bank and a new clothespin bag is ready for spring!

If you sew for people, do you give them back their fabric?  In most cases, they have no use for it, so I keep it and use it later.  It's kind of fun to use it later and remember what I did with it the first time.

Linking here:
http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2015/04/clever-chicks-blog-hop-314-featuring.html
http://www.sewcando.com
http://www.skiptomylou.org
http://www.thesitsgirls.com
http://www.flamingotoes.com/2015/04/show-and-tell-link-party-7/