For Quilters Who Love their Scraps Too Much: Upcycle them into Pet Pillows

Here are my latest scrap-filled pet pillows, (photobombed by the Beatles.) I just unloaded a dozen of them! (The pillows, not the Beatles). Here's the the story: 

Nothing focuses the mind like a new grandchild, and one of my instinctive responses to this joyful development is that I'm trying to clear and downsize my sewing room -- so I can fit some baby toys in.

And the area most in need of clearing in my sewing room was a corner stacked with pillows, most stuffed with small fabric and batting scraps. 

Thanks partly to Covid, I had about five years worth of scraps. Before the pandemic, a nearby animal shelter was happy to take them. But then I didn't donate any for a couple of years; and Covid struck, when no one wanted anything from anyone's house. My scrap stash grew. 

Last week, I called the shelter, and to my horror, they told me they no longer wanted pillows! What in the world would I do with them? The thought of sending them into the landfill filled me with despair! (I REALLY love even my tiniest scraps, and care deeply about their future. If you do too, we probably need a therapy group.)

So I posted on Nextdoor marketplace, pet section, that the pillows were free. I got two bites: one from a guy who apparently wanted to use them for humans. I told him that scrap-filled pillows, tragically, are NOT comfortable for human heads. (Wouldn't it be great if they were? Quilters could get rich with a side-hustle making bed pillows from our scraps!) Unfortunately, scrap-filled pillows are too lumpy for human faces. 

Fortunately, the second bite came from a woman who fosters kittens. To my delight, she wanted them all! So the photo on the top shows how they looked on my porch, awaiting   pickup (I wasn't giving away the Beatles photo, it's permanent porch decor).  

For pillowcases, I used a wide assortment of fabrics on hand, including

•  New fleece featuring the Pillsbury Doughboy, gifted to me by a friend.

•  A soft knit featuring dalmations on plaid - dots and lines, what's not to love? How I wish this were a woven cotton quilting fabric. 

• Old (but still strong) sweatpants. Here's one of them:
  

I cut off the waistbands. Then I cut open the inseam (up and down the inside of the the legs.). Next, I sewed the two front legs together down the middle, the two back legs together down the middle. Sewed up the side seams. Turned the whole thing right-side-out, stuffed the open end with scraps, and folded the opening over twice and sewed it up. Done, cozy, and upcycled! 

•  Tee shirts, processed in a similar way.
•  Old pillowcases, sewn shut. These are the easiest.

I am so happy that my scraps went to benefit kittens, and I wish the kitties, as well as my scraps, a very happy, adorable future! In the meantime, my sewing room is positively echo-ey with this vast mountain of scraps removed!

If you're interested in making pet pillows, I suggest you first try to locate someone who actually wants them them. Some shelters do and some don't, but individuals who foster pets might be more likely to take them. Nextdoor, Freecycle, Offerup are all places you can post them. 

I would absolutely love to hear what you do with your smallest fabric and batting scraps! 

Quilt Your City on Pillows

Out of wall space? How about making some quilted pillows?

I might not have thought of this, if I hadn't been asked. A neighbor saw my pandemic porch quilt show (the subject of my last several blog posts), and commissioned me to make four 18" pillows, including two with scenes from our town, South Pasadena, which is part of Los Angeles. We negotiated a price and a backing color - grey - and I was off. It took about two weeks, and here they are. 

The first one in the lineup above represents the town's Gold Line MTA Train crossing. For research, I took my family on a masked Christmas Day photo safari. Action photography is not my forte; it was surprisingly challenging to catch a shot of a train in mid-intersection. But I got a few.

I also photographed our town's iconic "walking man" statue, next to the station. My daughter did a little leap for me, and she provides scale for just how tall this guy is.

The photos helped me set the scene. 

I imported a walking man photo into my CorelDraw program, and traced it, to make the statue outline. Just for fun, the client and I decided to add a small person with the same profile striding in the opposite direction.

There are two coffee shops next to the tracks, so I created a blue table with coffee and pie in the corner. The small shiny black circles on the railroad crossing pole are tiny, vintage black plastic buttons. 

On the back flap, there's a departing train. 

The second scene that the clients requested was our town's 19th century watering trough. Most of the time, it looks like this.

But on Thursday afternoons and evenings, it's surrounded by a lively farmer's market. So I circled my trough with goodies. Here's how the piece looked flat. 

The ostrich is our town's mascot - 100 years ago, South Pas. was home to an eccentric tourist-trap ostrich farm. Historians say it put  us on the map. 

(The ostriches were not purple, I just did that for fun. The farm no longer exists, which is sad for our town's economy, but happy for the ostriches, who were forced to schlep the tourists around in large wooden carriages.)

Here's the scene as a pillow. 

And I added some more food fabrics to the back. 

The two other pillows that my clients requested were a swimming pool pillow - here it is before assembly...

...and then after the pillow was inserted. 

The clients got the idea from the swimming pool quilt I blogged about a while back, with a tutorial about how I gave the pools depth with sturdy fusible interfacing and reverse applique, HERE. 

Finally, they wanted a pillow with my tessellating coffee cups design. Before stuffing, it looked like this.

....And after stuffing: 

Showing this pillow on Facebook led to a discussion in which my candid friends agreed that these look less like coffee mugs with handles (my intention), than some kind of bird or alien heads. Whatever you think it looks like, if you want to make your own version, the pattern is in my "Quilts for Coffee Lovers" PDF booklet on etsy, HERE. 

Have you made quilted pillows?

Got Librarians? A Pillow for Book Lovers

Just finished: A birthday throw pillow for my cousins, rabbi Nina, and her husband Tom, a retired librarian: 

The lovable library fabric was designed by Heather Givans of Windham Fabrics, for her "Jot" collection. Closer:

I found it a couple of months ago, during my visit to an a terrific New York City fabric district quilt shop, Gotham Quilts. 

Gotham doesn't stock vast amounts of fabric, but the selection is choice and the prices are among the most reasonable for quilting cottons in New York's fabric district. (Most of the stores I visited there - much larger and messier - charged far more than $10-$12/yard). The owner is friendly and helpful! Great classes, too!

To cover the inner pillow (which I stuffed myself), I used fabric that my daughter bought me while participating in an archaeological dig in New Mexico this summer. My cousins live in Arizona, and have been involved with Native American causes, so I felt this was perfect for the interior.

There are approximately 20 billion pillowcase-making tutorials online, including (speaking of the great Southwest), the "burrito method". (Google "pillowcase tutorial.") With the right novelty fabric, a custom covered pillow is the perfect, fast gift!

Note: I have no financial affiliation with anything mentioned or linked to in this blog post! But, speaking of money, the fabrics in the Givans "Jot" collection are still widely available online, in precuts as well as yardage. 

Star Wars Characters Go Home for the Holidays to a Log Cabin Quilt

Star Wars, it's everywhere! Even quilt shops aren't safe! But before you spend $102.48 for a half-yard bundle of SW fabric - consider what you might make.  Last year, I made a pillowcase for a young fan. (I'm abbreviated to SW so you don't get sick of seeing the words.)

It only took about a yard of fabric. I used up all the colorful guess-what-themed fabric. The piece I had leftover was a quarter-yard of this somber print...

So last week, I thought it might be fun to put these gray guys into colorful little houses. Specifically, improvisational faux-wood log cabin houses (thank you, Karen, for the scraps!)

In the quilt world, squares built out from the center by adding strips to the sides are called log cabins. First, I thought I might make each unit into a seperate coaster. Then, I plopped all four of them into the same indigo batik snowflake neighborhood:

Liked it! I also built a ground-floor addition to Darth Vadar's house, to accomodate his scary boss/roomate, the furious-nosed Darth Sidious.*

(Is that Darth Sidious? Corrections welcomed.) Whoever. Here's how the piece looked after quilting with a blue metallic thread (which can't be seen at all without a magnifying glass):

I also added a chimney, and cut a piece from a produce bag as smoke.

(My house-depiction skills have not advanced since 2nd grade. I am sacrificing my self-respect here in order to prove that anyone can do this.)

Because it was so improvisational, there was an unanticipated space (Space!), immediately to the east of C3PO R2D2's house [whoever]. So I imagined an invisible driveway with a vintagey spaceship parked in it, cut from a non-SW fabric. That's a dog in the rocketship window, symbolizing a wookie.

I didn't intend for the piece to look like Christmas/Chanukah, but that's what the snowflake batik accomplished. By now, the whole thing was screaming "winter holidays." A visiting friend took one look and asked me if I was making an Advent Calendar?!

Clearly, the Galactic Rulers wanted this to be a holiday quilt. Imagine, I told myself, that SW characters are going home for the winter holidays to their wooden log cabins, where they live next to each other in the same exclusive gated community. On their planet, by sheer coincidence, seasonal festivities involve trees and multi-armed candelabras.

With an undecorated tree:

With a lit menorah: 

How about a tree, a menorah AND a spaceship?

How about losing the ship, decorating the tree, and using a smaller menorah one the lower left?

After some agonizing, I wound up with a decorated tree and a small menorah. 

It became the perfect present for good friends of mine who love both Christmas and SW, and have friends of many faiths.

Meanwhile, if you are a beginning quilter, you may be wondering how to sew freeform log cabins. Start with your character. Cut him (with SW, it's usually a him) out in a rectangle or square. Surround with housing material - I used 1"- 2"strips from woodgrain scraps. Stitch the logs to all four sides (or just the two verticles, and one horizontal on top, to evoke a doorway). That's Unit I. 

There are a million ways to vary the above directions, altering configurations of the house and the roofs. However you do it, the final step is to stitch the bottom edge of Unit II to the top edge of Unit I. 

If you don't feel like making a SW quilt, support an independent quilter by shopping for reasonably-priced handmade SW quilts on Etsy.com. Also spotted on Etsy: dog collars; women's shoes; bowties; lampshades, and much more, all made from SW fabric.  Plus lots and lots of yardage.

Another place to find ideas is at Camelot Fabrics, the manufacturer - a couple of free projects start on this page.

Hancock Fabrics is having a SW sale! (no financial affiliation with any of these places).

What's next? I predict: Star Wars-themed sewing machines, with special effects and climactic music, rising to a crescendo when you press harder on the pedal and/or use your fanciest attachments.

*As opposed to the even more furious, nasally deficient, Voldemort.

P.S. Then there's this. It's literally true:

This is literally true. Sold here. No financial affiliation!

Sweet Dreams are Made of This: A Pillowcase Adventure

A very wonderful  teenager is graduating from high school this month, and we were thrilled and honored to be invited to her graduation party. She had overcome serious health obstacles, which made the celebration especially meaningful. She also has many passionate interests, one of which is Star Wars.

Oh happy day! Not just for her - for me!  Licensed character fabric purchase excuse! Normally I try to buy fabric from my LQS*, but they generally don't carry non-top-quality licensed fabric. So off I went to The Local Chain.

But first I asked her mom if she thought her daughter would prefer a Star Wars tote bag or a pillowcase - mom picked the latter.

They had several different Star Wars print. The best one was a comic book theme:

This was my very first pillowcase, and gee whiz, it came together a whole lot faster than a quilt or a tote bag. I used the fairly simple instructions in this one-page PDF from Quiltmaker magazine.

Because it's all squeezed into one page, this pattern is light on explanation, and the drawings are enigmatic, but the main conceptual challenge for quilters is that the two strips of trim - a narrow band and the wider end band - should be pressed in half the long way, wrong sides together. Then you stitch them, right sides together, to the main panel. Clothing and handbag makers, I know you are guffawing that this was a conceptual challenge for me. Once I grokked it, the rest came together very quickly.

There's something else the pattern didn't warn me about. I discovered I had made a slightly vast miscalculation, and instead of buying a yard-and-a-third , I bought 3/4 of a yard, thinking it was plenty. It would have been plenty, if the fabric hadn't been a directional print running the long way.  Back home, studying the pattern and the fabric together, I realized that that meant my print had to run sideways. We can only hope this does not give the sleeping giftee a kink in her neck. Here's the finished pillowcase.

I prefer to look at it this way:

 There's a one inch trim strip with gold stars on a navy sky, and then a navy-and-white Darth Vader-intensive print along the open edge. Sweet dreams?

Come to think of it, this orientation would be perfect for a carrier of some sort. Maybe I should just add some rope and declare it a laundry bag?

Not being a perfectionist, I pressed forward. For the presentation, I folded it up, stuffed it in a Yoda mug, added a huge ribbon loop attached by a butterfly pin.

(It's sitting on my leftover quarter-yard from the trim. What to do with it? ) I wrapped the whole thing in Chanukah cellophane (e.g. clear cellophane with big 6-pointed blue stars, which I took artistic license to redefine as non-denominational intergalactic stars). I hope she likes it!

There are a lot of good causes and children's charities that need pillowcases- they're a fast and rewarding way to use up all your leftover juvenile fabric from years of making childrens' quilts.  Find charities in the middle of this page, part of  American Patchwork & Quilting's 'Million Pillowcase' project. There's also a brainstorming list at the top of the page.

APQ also offers a slew of  free pillowcase patterns - some more advanced than the one I used, with a  pieced trim strip; some simpler, especially for youngsters and beginners to stitch - here,

Now if only someone would manufacture licensed Pride and Prejudice/Colin Firth fabric....or Sherlock/Benedict Cumberbatch fabric...or Dr. Who fabric (any doctor)....I really need some new pillowcases.....

*LQS = Local Quilt Shop

UPDATE: My correspondent Robin Levenberg told me about another wonderful charity for whom she and 5 friends have made 800 pillowcases so far - which, she says, barely scratches the surface of the need:

There is a organization in Philadelphia, Conkerr Cancer, as well as chapters around the world that make and donate pillowcases to children's hospitals.  When kids come in for treatment, they can choose a fun, happy pillowcase.
This organization depends on donations from sewers like us, to fill the demand.  Just in the Philadelphia area (3 hospitals) they need 1100 cases/ month!  Directions for making pillowcases are on their website, www.Conkerrcancer.org.
They are easy to make, and use 1yd. of fabric.  These cases are so appreciated by the kids and their families.  Sometimes, it is the only bright spot in their day.

Thanks, Robin, for the addition!