Nothing too big

I wrote an email to Annee last week letting her know that I think I might be retiring from sewing.  I was of course being all dramatic and feeling sorry for myself because I find myself drained of any energy at the end of my days. My nights used to be my creative time and I would work for hours after my kids went to bed sewing and making things.  Now all I really want to do is just sit and watch TV or look at what everyone else is making in the crafting blog world.  Annee reassured me that I'll find my "balance again soon," and I know she's right.  It might not be too soon, and that's okay too.  I do have high hopes of sewing things for Christmas, and I keep thinking if I start soon enough then maybe I can make it happen.  However, I haven't moved past the thinking about it stages.  Looks like I need to start taking action before October turns into December!


Okay, but on to what I have made.  I know I can buy birthday gifts at the store, but isn't it more fun to give something more meaningful?  I think it is, so I've made a couple of birthday gifts recently.

But the main thing I've been working on, and it's such a small project but took me so long (reread the first paragraph of this post), is a new pillow.  I love pillows, and I'm feeling like my pillows need a change.  I bookmarked this free pattern years ago, and recently rediscovered it.  I also bought some fat quarters of Anna Maria Horner's new fabric line, Loulouthi.

I took AMH Hugs and Kisses in Ocean and combined it with Summer Totem in Tart and made my own Hourglass Pillow.  

Notice my little helpers foot in the background?

The only problem I ran into, and you might not notice it if I didn't mention it, was I didn't have enough of the Summer Totem.  The pattern is so big, that I should probably used a 1/2 yd cut when I made this pillow.  On one side of the pillow the flowers are right side up while the triangle opposite of the right side up flowers has upside down flowers.  Does that make sense?  

It's probably too confusing and it's late so my brain is starting to shut down, so study the pictures if you want to see my mistake.  Otherwise, just look at how beautiful the fabrics are that Anna Maria designs.  I'm really thinking I need to make these curtains with some of her fabric.  The only problem - which two fabrics do I chose?!

I also used AMH fabric on the back.  The red is from the Garden Party line, and the harvest yellow is from Innocent Crush. 

This was my first pillow I added an invisible zipper to.  Totally easy, and I will for sure be doing that again.  I used this tutorial as my guide, but you can also just read the instructions on the invisible zipper package.  Such a cinch.  The funny thing is that the zipper was mentally stumping me, and I just thought it was going to be so much harder than it was.  

Like I said, nothing too big, but at least it's something!