So-So Sewing and some Pillow Talk

I finally did it. I broke out my brand new sewing machine that I got for Christmas...7 months ago (hangs head in shame). I really had good intentions of getting my new Brother cranked up but kept stalling since I knew I would need plenty of time to read the manual and play around with it. Oh, who am I kidding? I was scared to death of it. Yep, never have I ever used a sewing machine but by golly I wanted to learn!

So last week I pulled everything out and spent an hour learning sewing lingo and exploring every nook and cranny of my sewing machine. Then I wound my bobbin with some pink thread, loaded the top threader and ran through some scrap fabric. And away the needle went, sewing away. Or so I thought. I was beaming with pride for about two minutes when I realized that nothing was happening to my fabric. Turns out my needle did not thread properly. After a few tries I got it fixed and FINALLY saw my first stitches come to life. What a glorious moment. They weren't pretty but gosh darn it they were mine!

As I mentioned back in my yellow phone bench reveal, I had extra fabric from my office chair that I wanted to use to make a pillow.

See the nice and folded fabric sitting there, waiting patiently to be made into a pillow.

Yeah, it sat there for a while...but after much procrastination, I have completed the pillow and my first real sewing project. Yay!

I know to any seasoned seamstress a pillow sounds very basic and yawnish but I couldn't be happier that I finally overcame my silly fear of the sewing machine and gave it a shot. Next up? Sewing some curtains this week! But more on that later :)

For anyone out there like me who had no clue where to even start on a pillow, here are the basic steps I followed:

Just a heads up that the tutorial pictures are cell phone photos. Sorry, camera was dead.

1. Decide on the size for your pillow and add an inch or so on all sides to allow for sewing room.
2. Measure with a straight edge and cut out your two pillow pieces.

Can you see my teensy little mark to the right of the ruler? I marked and drew a light line to have the as even a line as possible.

Sorry no photos for the next few steps. I was in full concentration mode on the sewing machine.

3. Place the two pieces facing each other with the wrong sides out and pin together.
4. Sew three sides in full and the fourth side about one half to three-fourths closed.
5. Flip pillow right-side out and stuff with filling or fill with stuffing, whichever you prefer :)

I used Poly-Fil that I had on hand.

6. Hand-sew or machine-sew the remaining side closed. I chose to use the machine and although it doesn't look very good, you can't tell unless you look up close :) Hey, it's going to take some practice.
7. Fluff and enjoy!

Here's some afters for ya.

Really and truly, I did not do a very good job on the stitches. I let the fabric drift too much and had to realign everything causing the stitches to be wayyyy uneven. I was pleasantly surprised though when I flipped the pillow right-side out. Errors hidden - score!

Like I said earlier, I'm working on some curtains this week and I'm so nervous! Wish me luck!