Lumbar Lovin'

My chair at work won the contest of wills when I tried adjusting it to help my posture at my desk. I decided a good fix would be to just bring in a pillow. But of course it can't be just a plain pillow. Oh no. I made a new cover for one.

Last Thursday I looked around and had an odd-man-out on the sofa in the sewing room that has been waiting for a new lease on life, so no worries on the pillow front. Then I remembered I had a quilted top I made way long ago and wasn't sure how to finish sitting around in my cabinet. More than halfway there and I just started!

To add some personality I added a bright and busy print on the back. This Amy Butler Lark print (Heirloom, in Jade) is one of my favorites I have right now but I've had trouble thinking of good uses for it. I think the print would lose a lot of charm if it were cut up too much, and I haven't got a whole lot of other fabrics that go with it. (I did make a necklace and drawstring bag using it, which I think look fantastic!) I really just bought a little of it because it was so darn gorgeous. And so darn ME.

I tried out French seams for the first time. They are much easier to sew than to read instructions for. All I did was put the pillow together everything right sides out, stitched a 1/4" seam all around, turned the whole thing inside out through the envelope back, pressed, and stitched about a 3/8" seam all the way around. When it is right side out the seam looks like any other but inside the raw edges are encased. This is awesome because the linen frays like crazy. Sometimes just trying something on a simple project is the way to get it in my mental toolbox for winging it on other things later on. French seams: check.

The flowers are slightly squished because, well, I use it!

The plain linen and simple grid quilting needed something to spruce it up, so I browsed through my pins on Pinterest and rediscovered a really cute design with simple cut out flowers in a grid layout - seemed like just the thing! The flowers give great dimension in a non-fussy way, and the cross stitches were just what I needed to add some more color to the front. I used some bright blue linen for the flower petals (only one 2" circle, unlike the tutorial above which uses two) and cut smaller circles from scraps of plain linen for the centers. Two colors of pearl cotton were used for the stitching - gold and salmon. I couldn't decide which I liked best so I just used both.

The funny thing about this whole project was that I started it right before bed thinking I would just add a back and be satisfied. Hah. I was sitting in bed, cat purring and snoozing in my lap, stitching flowers on until the wee hours of the morning. I think what took so long was cutting out the circles and notching them. I realized a little too late that stacking 3 or 4 pieces to cut and notch worked just fine. Oh well. I still felt well rested the next day, and I sat at my desk with a much happier back. Yeah for lumbar pillows.

Linking up to Finish It Up Friday -- this top has been waiting around since summer, so it's a pretty satisfying finish!