Baby Shower Gift

My very good girlfriend, Jess, is having a little Baby Girl named Annabelle very soon, like... within-the-week soon. 

For her shower, I asked her if there was anything at all she wanted me to make for the nursery, that couldn't necessarily be purchased. She mentioned having these old cushions for the nursery rocking chair, that she wanted recovered. I offered to recover them for her. 

I had her pick out any heavier weight fabric from Hawthorne Threads that she wanted for the cushions. She picked this great Anna Maria Horner print called Coreopsis. I love it. It is girly without being childish.

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE MY BERNINA BINDER ATTACHMENT! IT IS AMAZINGGGG! I used it to make the ties for tying the cushion to the rocker. The previous cushion had ties, as shown. Using this foot to make the ties LITERALLY took only a few minutes, to make all 8.

I reused the old piping, and just covered it with new fabric for the new piping. 

I am a relatively new sewer and this project was really quite tough for me. It was pretty difficult to get the shape of the cushions just right, as well as sew them together, along with the quadruple piping layers, and actually keep my seam allowance accurate. It was tough.

I also tufted the cushions to finish them off. I totally forgot to take pictures of the process, but it was extremely easy. I followed this tutorial and it made the process fantastically easy. 

After the cushions, I needed an easy project to boost my confidence again. I wanted to make a little throw blanket for Annabelle's nursery as well. 

I VERY SIMPLY, took two yards of Anna Maria Horner flannels, and stitched around the edges, right sides together. I left a little hole to turn the work right sides out. Then I pressed the edges and stitched the edges to finish it off using my 1/4 foot. It was a super simple, and super cute blanket that is a great size, finishing at 32 x 42.
 

Here are some pictures of the finished cushions and throw. Keep in mind that this is my rocking chair, and not Baby Annabelle's. I don't think that her walls are swampy green!

Another project done! I am definitely learning some things along the way on this sewing journey. Only if I could accomplish more than one project a month, then maybe I would actually make a dent in My Bucket List.

HOLLER!

The definition of LABOR Day

I didn't spend my long weekend frolicking in the sand or basking in the sun, no, I spent it with my foot pedal to the floor sewing my heart out. 

My in-laws bought us a set of patio furniture that they found at a garage. It was in very good condition (had clearly never even been outside) but it needed new cushion covers (not new cushions). 

The cushions were still in good shape and we were definitely able to reuse them. We were also able to reuse the zippers from the previous covers, which was AWESOME. My mother-in-law pointed out that they were probably only used once. Haha, duh! 

We went to a home decor fabric store and ordered some fabric. We ordered 3 prints. One for the sofa, one for the set of end chairs, and another for the rocker. 

 

I reallllllyyyyy love this fabric! 

 

I really truly almost changed my blog name to Pinning My Life Away... I have literally never pinned this much in my entire life. 1/2 of the cushions needed to be eased are the corner, so I pinnnnnnedddddd.

 And pinned...

and pinned.....

But all that pinning lead to some gorgeously rounded cushion corners Woohooo!

After 1 NONSTOP day of sewing.... we ended up with all of these:

 

After 2 days of nonstop sewing (and zippering, and pinning, and bleeding) we ended up with all of these:

After all of that pinning and sewing and zippering and pinning and sewing and zippering I neeeeeeded something to boost morale:

This was  my mother-in-law's station. She was the true mastermind behind the whole project. I have never made a cushion of any kind. She drew out all of the patterns on craft paper, took all of the measurements, and went through all the real "thinking it out" that this project involved.  I truly just sewed as I was told. 
 

Why do cats want to sit on everything important to you?
 

While we were sewing our hearts out, our men we're painting the furniture a nice hammered black. It was previously a dark green color.

The biggest problem that we/mainly my mother-in-law ran across was with the geometric fabric. She is a perfectionist (yes, you are) and wanted to make the circle run through the center of the bottom and top cushions. This involved some major fussy cutting on her part. But look, it worked out perfectly!
 

Once all of the paint dries and I get final screened-in-porch photos all taken, I will show you!

OH! - did I mention that they found all of this furniture for $50? Also, did I mention that it is a 7 piece set that includes 1 sofa, 2 chairs, 1 rocker, 2 end tables, and a coffee table? Yeah, what a good find! 





Holler! 

< Edited to Add > You can see this completed project as well as my other projects by viewing my flickr account here. You can also use the links on my sidebar to view all of my projects!