IMP: Pillow #4 square ruffle-edged pillow

Not sure what's going on? Read this!

I was (and still am) stoked about this pillow. Mostly because it gave me an opportunity to use my favorite fabrics in my stash right now:

The quarter is for scale!

I bought these adorable fabrics from the most amazing website that sells reproductions of Japanese textiles from the mid-century. And I bought them while highly intoxicated. Aaaand I can't remember what the website is. Can you please leave a comment if you know where they're from? I'll give you e-hugs.

Anyway so I was really excited about this pillow. The book (my bible) says to get two yards of the same fabric, but I didn't have that on hand and wasn't really in the mood to go shopping (it's rainy over here in San Francisco). I did have a yard of each of the fabric above. I decided to make the cover with the darker one, and the ruffles with the lighter. I also had my Mom help me with this one, as she knows everything about sewing. Check it out:

Ironing the length so I can easily cut it

BFF with my iron again

The book says to cut 3 strips that are 4" wide. I cut a strip that was 12" wide and then was going to measure out 4," but then Mother Dearest came in and was like "do this instead."

A-ha! Instead of measuring out each 4" strip, just fold them evenly and then iron them flat. That way they'll be perfectly even.

Heck yes! Perfectly even! I rule! (thanks Mom)

Then I had to measure, measure, measure to make sure my envelope back would work correctly and fit the proper pillow form. I am embracing the pillow form for this project--mainly because it has an envelope back and not a zipper. I am not a fan of zippers on pillows.

I'm thinking that maybe I should name my iron. We've become so close and when I talk to it I feel bad about just calling it Iron

Next step was to stab the owl in the face so that I could sew the cover

What I use to poke the corners totally square. Be careful with delicate fabrics, though. You don't want to puncture them

That's a lot of (adorable) owls

Next up was creating the ruffles, which I wasn't too excited about because I knew it'd be really time consuming. All of these projects require patience. I'm still not patient enough, but I'm getting there.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but my Grandmother was an expert seamstress. She had her own business and everything. And she'd always have the kids (i.e. my Mother) help her with projects. Because of this, my Mom knows WAY TOO MUCH about sewing. This is wonderful, because I totally make her teach me tricks and secrets.

Mom felt like I was rushing too much through the ruffle part. Her quote: "Listen, Love. The key to creating the perfect ruffle is to have a cocktail and then spend all night making it perfectly even." I did the cocktail part, but the ruffles only took me about an hour. They are also not the best (and most even) ruffles ever. Next time!

Sewing the ruffles onto the cover was surprisingly difficult. "Patience," Mom said. She was right.

After the ruffles were on the cover they seemed kinda flat and blah-like. So I ironed them out.

I've already got too many goddamn pillows in my house. And I've got something like 42 to go. Instead of buying yet another pillow form, I opted to just use the one above. See:

Re-purpose that shit!

The Finished Pillow:

Some notes:

• I'd suggest making the ruffles way wider. Next time I'm at LEAST doubling the width, so 8." I will probably go up to something like 12," we'll see.
• Mom suggested that there is an easier way to creating the ruffle. She said that next time she'll show me how (and then I can share it with you guys!).
• This pillow fucking rules.

Whatcha think? I'm into it! Super girly (it has ruffles!), but whatever. It has owls on it (nobody fucks with an owl).

Related posts:
Pillow #3 crazy quilt-style patchwork pillow
Pillow #2 the ribbon and trim pillow
Pillow #1 the basic rectangular pillow

Goin' crazy

Making pillows over here! Crafting makes me crazy.

Oh wow, I went to The Ribbonerie

I've sort of become obsessed with ribbons. It's just so easy to fall in love with all the different colors, textures, patterns, and designs.


Today we went to The Ribbonerie, which is a store on Sacramento street in San Francisco that specializes exclusively in ribbons. It's packed to the gills with every kind of ribbon you could possibly imagine. Heaven sent. Here's what I picked up:


I have big plans. Here is a breakdown:

Silk-screened silk. Super wide, super awesome. It cost $9 a yard, so I got half a yard. $4.50 for this one:


LOVE IT.

I went into the 50% off room and found this super neat gold and red houndstooth. It was originally $1 a yard, so I got 5 yards for $2.50:



I don't know what I'm going to do with the houndstooth, but whatever. It's houndstooth. It won't be too difficult for me to find a home for it.

I also found this great black and silver ribbon-thing in the 50% off room:




It's really pretty. It's got wire in it. And I don't know if you can tell from the photos, but that silver is real metal, not thread. And the black is velvet. It was $1.20 a yard, and since it was half off I got 5 yards for $3.00.

Next up I bought this linen ribbon with yellow stars on it. It's super Americana. It was $4.35 a yard, so I bought half a yard.





This next one is the one I'm most excited about. I have big plans for it:




Isn't it AMAZING? It was $3.50 a yard, so I bought 11 yards of it. I have BIG PLANS.

What do you think of my choices? Did I do alright?

p.s. Yes, I'm wearing roller skates.

Dinner with mom at Sea Salt

Yum!

IMP: Pillow #2, the ribbon and trim pillow (2nd version)

IMP: Pillow #3 crazy-quilt-style patchwork pillow

Not sure what's going on? Read this!

Pillow #3 was *suppose* to be the basic rectangular pillow, but since I totally effed up the iron transfer project for it I decided to put it on the back burner. Instead, I skipped ahead a few projects and did the one that I have been most excited about.


I was really excited about this project because it would allow me to use my favorite textiles in my collection: the vintage reproductions (think Eames, Panton, etc).

The book says to create your own pattern. What I did was draw out a 21" x 21" square on a piece of foam core and then laid down my pattern within it piece-by-piece until it was full:

It probably would have been a better to separate the quilt into four squares (for easier sewing purposes), but I'm just so obsessed with that Letters fabric by Gunnar Aagaard Andersen (the front and center one in yellow and black, oh and by the way it was designed in 1955, so badass!). I wanted it front and center. I decided to sew the pieces together in strips.

But first! I had to iron them. I was still angry at my iron.

I had it heated to its proper temperature and then I sort of just looked at it (with disdain) and was trying to send it mental messages like "you will not destroy these fabrics. You will not burn my floor. I am your owner." But then I realized that when you pick a fight with an inanimate object the inanimate object always wins. So I got to pressin' and sewin' the fabricz together.






Which was WAY fun.

Once I had completed sewing and pressing my three strips, I sewed them all together to create the front of the pillow (yippie!). Then I trimmed down the edges so that it was a perfect square (I had a lot of overhang). It was an odd measurement, so I just placed it on top of the fabric I was going to use for the back and cut it out from there:



For the back I used a really soft black wool. It was the score of the century. $7 a yard. For black wool. What? Not a typo. Next I pinned it together and began the sewing process. This is always my favorite part.

Now, the book (my bible) says to use a pillow form, but I knew better. There was no way I was going to be able to create this pillow to size, as my fabrics were really heavy (upholstery grade). I knew at the end I'd end up trimming a lot off. I opted to use poly-fil instead, which I'm a huge fan of (I use it for almost all my pillow projects). I just feel like, generally speaking, pillow forms are an exact science, and I'm not good enough for that (yet?). Plus, poly-fil is super cheap and if you know how to do it right (start with shoving a shitload into each corner first) it will end up looking pretty good.

Here is the finished project (I'm so proud of this one):






Let me know what you think in the comments!

Related posts:
Pillow #2 the ribbon and trim pillow
Pillow #1 the basic rectangular pillow

IMP: Sneak peek

Just finished a new pillow. Definitely my favorite so far.

IMP: How NOT to do an iron transfer

Let me start off by saying that I was really excited to do this project. I was going to iron on some cool designs onto fabric and then make a pillow out of it.

A few months ago I purchased Hot Type By Brett MacFadden and Scott Thorpe:

I really like the book because it's jam-packed with all sorts of badass typography that I think would look great on a pillow. It's also super inexpensive. A real score!

Anyway, I wanted to wait to try transferring anything until I started my pillow project. I was going to do it for the "basic square pillow." I even had the fabric picked out:

Britex has a great selection of decently priced remnants. I thought going with a heavy natural canvas would be a great look.

After I was done measuring and cutting my fabric I read the the instructions on how to transfer the images onto your fabric. "Avoid applying transfers to rough or textured materials (such as heavy canvas) as the bumps and ridges in the fabric will affect the quality of the transfer." So I'm thinking... "well... I've already *cut* the fabric... and I'm pretty pumped about this.... and I think this would look really fucking cool if it turns out right... so maybe the instructions are wrong and I am just smarter than everyone else." I decided to go forward with using the fabric they specifically said not to use, because I'm super brilliant.

They also said you should do some test runs with some of the transfers before you settle on your first project, as iron temperatures vary, fabrics vary, etc, etc, etc. I was like "F that, I'm going all in." I picked my favorite one and went ahead and did what the instructions said to do, except not really:

Okay so clearly I screwed that up. I assumed it was because I didn't put enough pressure on the iron, and also I had too much sheet underneath the fabric (which was absorbing too much of the heat).

I decided to try again with another totally rad design. Ship Shape! Love it. This time I only used a thin piece of fabric underneath my fabric, and I did it on my floor so I could apply A LOT of pressure. I also upped the ironing time from 4 to 8 minutes.

After the 6th minute I started to smell burning. I assumed it was the transfer paper. I was like "give it another minute!" What is wrong with me? PRO TIP: If you smell something burning, stop ironing it:


Yes, I burned it. Fantastic. Officially failed. Oh wait, but there's more:


I BURNED MY FLOOR WITH MY IRON. MY REALLY PRETTY HARDWOOD FLOOR.

So yeah, that is how you SHOULDN'T do an iron transfer. I'm going to go have a good cry, bye.

Metropolitan Home folds

I get sad when any shelter mag gets the axe, but at the same time I'm not going to sugar coat it and act like Met Home folding was a big surprise.

When I was a teenager one of my favorite things to do (and do often) was go to Barnes and Noble on a Friday night. I'd collect a GIANT stack of design mags. If it covered any area of interior design or architecture I wanted to look through it. I'd try to absorb everything I could and I'd take tons of notes. I couldn't afford to buy them, but I always knew that when I could, I would. I needed them.

When college came design blogs were becoming my new source for industrial and furniture design, but I still heavily relied on print mags for overall inspiration and great spreads of buildings, inside and out. I'd support my favorite design mags by purchasing a copy. If it was an import I might have to skip lunch or dinner, but it was worth it because I was supporting a publication that helped me be inspired, which is what I needed to be a great design student.

Shoot forward to present day and I'm making daily visits to the Contemporist and the Shelby and Desire to Inspire. I send links to clients, I share content on Twitter. Where do shelter mags fit in?

The truth is, there isn't room for even a remote amount of bullshit anymore. You have to be a top tier (from front to back cover) shelter mag to not go under. That's super hard and a real rarity, especially if you have to do it consistently month after month, year after year (example: Dwell or Elle Decor UK--my personal favorites).

I haven't bought a copy of Met Home in over 3 years. The same goes for most of the other mags I used to so heavily rely on. I'm sure Met Home was still a good mag, but it wasn't the best. You can't just be a good magazine anymore, you have to be the best magazine. You can’t simply show your readers a pretty spread of some millionaire’s house. That’s boring and easy. It’s just eye-candy. You have to capture an idea and then translate it into text and photography. Something that is very difficult to do online. You can’t cover your favorite pieces from Milan six months after the fact. All of my favorite bloggers already did that, and the day after the show ended.

RIP Met Home. Thank you for helping me along the way. I wouldn't be as good of a designer if you weren't there for me when I needed you.

It's good to have buds

Just got off the phone with Harry Wakefield from MoCo Loco. I don't know where I'd be without his guidance. He's the best mentor I've ever had.