6 Months = 4 Pillows

Sweet cheesus, I just might be the laziest, most procrastinating person in the world.  Way, way back in February I was trolling Design*Sponge and came across this tutorial on zippered throw pillows (the same tutorial I used to make the petbed/end table pillow).  It seemed easy enough and I thought it would be a perfect project to get cracking on my sewing and jazz up our lackluster throw pillows that came included with our sectional.  While they are softish and perfect for naps, they practically disappear on the couch and don't add much visual interest.  On top of that, Chewie has recently taken it upon himself to chew little holes in the corners of the pillows, so I guess he didn't like them much, either.

I convinced dragged John to Jo-Ann's and found some fun cotton fabrics to accent our orange walls, along with matching zippers and thread.  Back at home... it took me almost six months to finish the darn things.  I honestly don't remember when I actually started, but through some email investigation, it was mid-February when I asked John if he'd take me out to Jo-Ann's to hunt for fabric.  I started with the plain green-blue fabric and it was just a nightmare.  I can't cut a straight line to save my life and pretty much botched my first squares, but somehow managed to get them in a square shape.  Then I didn't understand the instructions on installing the zippers and did a whole bunch of the exact opposite things as I should have done.  Let's just say there was a bunch of seam ripping going on.  It was pretty dismal and distressing and an easy project to set aside until I had grown some courage.  In the meantime, we came up with a bunch of other things and my poor empty sacks sat alone along with the untouched floral fabric.

The two fabrics.  I forgot any "before" or "during" photos.  Also notice lifelike cat head pillow.

This also happened...

The innards of one of pillow forms.  It didn't deserve this.  :'(

My craziness drives John crazy and he instituted a "no new projects until Amanda finishes old projects" rule... which we sorta almost follow.  I realized I need to stay focused, too, or our house will be littered with empty pillow sacks and half-finished painting projects and sadness.  Like it is now, but I'm working on it!  So, a couple weekends ago I finally sat down and took care of these darn things.  You might remember I had a nice thing going upstairs in my Mom Den, but with our wicked heat wave, it's about 1,000 degrees on our second floor and I was afraid of being found all dessicated like the creepy dried up apple man my Grandma had in front of my sewing machine, pillow cases still unfinished... so I gathered up my stuff and moved down into the basement where I could sew and watch Candice Olson (the only downside being it gave Elliot more angles to jump up on the table and lay on my fabric, or dig on my fabric, or sit under the table and paw at my fabric...).

My current situation, complete with pet butts.

I read and re-read the instructions and stared at my fabric and examined my zippers and thought back to all my mistakes and moved forward.  Luckily, it went so much better the second time around.  I still struggled to cut square squares, even though I was using my new cutting board, my fancy rotary cutter, a level (for a straight edge), and! an actual square!  I don't know what my problem is.  By some miracle, I didn't mess them up too badly and I'd have to say, they came out pretty OK.

A pillow, six months in the making! 

A zipper!  Check out my mediocre skills!

So, that's that.  In six months, I finished four pillows.  Maybe five, if you count the pet bed hexapillow.  In the meantime, I've managed to amass fabric with the intentions of making a shower curtain for our upstairs slanty bathroom, a window covering for John's office, and more pillows for our main floor living room!  I guess I didn't do to well sticking to my "no new projects" rule, but my setbacks and struggles with these wretched pillows didn't seem to dampen my enthusiasm, either...

Mom Den: Part 1.25

First, some bits of randomness... last Tuesday was our sixth month Graftonniversary.  I can't even believe it has already been six months, but then, it feels like The Grafton has always been our home.  We've accomplished so much in the last six months and I could probably go on for another six months just talking about all the projects we have planned and all the projects we can only dream about doing.  I'm just glad we're as happy as we are and haven't met any crazy setbacks yet.  I need to go rub my Buddha (the little red dude, not Elliot) and try to reverse any jinxing I may have just brought upon myself...

Rub his tummy for good luck. :)

Second, every once in a while I like to check the "stats" tab in Blogger to see all the random countries people are reading our blog in (I have no idea how they stumble upon it).  There's also a section that shows what search strings people navigate to get to our blog.  Since we don't get much traffic, it's usually empty, but today, there was a fun surprise for my viewing pleasure...

If you can't quite read it, it says "new sprout marijuana mold".  Tisk tisk, anonymous searcher.  I feel slightly scandalized that our beautiful, innocent plants have attracted these types of hooligans.  Oh well.  Hopefully while they were here, they got to enjoy some photos of our glorious sons or felt inspired to put down their pot and paint something.  Rapscallions...

OK, back on subject... I have finally found direction on my mom den.  Ever since I was given this space, I have gone back and forth on the colors and feel for the room.  I always thought I'd go pink in there for fun, but with everything else going on, never really decided on anything.  My latest idea was either a magenta and navy blue scheme or maybe something like coral and turquoise.  Well, we can throw all those out the window because I found and bought this green floral chair yesterday on Target's website:

I can't even remember now what brought me to Target's website, but this chair was featured on their homepage as part of an advertisement for their furniture sale.  It just looked so bright and cheery, I couldn't resist.  Plus, I think using the chair and its colors will be a great inspiration for the rest of the room.  The colors go so much better with the rest of our house than something pink ever would have.  There's some orange like our basement, a slate blue to complement our Gossamer first level, and a green that is similar to what we're thinking about using for the second level.  It's like it was meant to be!  To sweeten the deal even further, it's on sale for $99.99 from $139.99.  Remembering my success in finding a coupon code for our basement rug, I Googled around again and found a $5 off a purchase of $50 or more code and typed that in to save a few more bucks.  Still, not a ton of money, but it's something.

I got the wonderful news my chair shipped this morning, so you know there will be an exciting 3-5 business days of tracking ahead of me.  In the meantime, I'll ponder if I should repaint my den, what kind of window coverings to put up, maybe DIY'ing some art... OK, I probably won't ponder too hard since we're heading home tomorrow morning for the Easter weekend.  Plus, we still need to finish all our other painting projects and I think John deserves to have his office decorated before my den.  He's so great and deserves a great place to spend the few hours a day that he actually works.  :)

Happy Easter everyone!

Mom Den: Part 1

Up to this point, almost all of our cleaning/decorating/unpacking efforts have been allocated to our first floor, a tiny bit to the basement, and even less to our second floor.  I'm pretty sure entire weeks have gone by where I don't even venture upstairs.  As he works up there, John has made a little bit of progress in his home office, and we have (sparsely) set up the guest bedroom.  It's really quite a shame because it's pretty charming up there, with the slanted walls and nice views of the yard... if you can ignore the lower ceiling heights and avoid meeting your doom in an avalanche of boxes. 

As one of my unofficial New Year's Resolutions, I have vowed to get back into knitting and finally learn how to use my sewing machine.  To aid in this effort and make use of a room we otherwise don't really need at this point (it's been marked as the future home of Baby Bedtelyon - who does not exist and will not exist in the near future, just to clarify), I have so graciously been given the room and it has been christened the "Mom Den".  I may not have any human children to call me "mom", but petsons most definitely count... right?

Too long ignored, we finally bought a piece of furniture specifically for my den.  Please welcome our newest IKEA piece, the 16-cubbied EXPEDIT! 

Ooooh!  Ahhhh!

Surprisingly easy to assemble (even though the boxes were crazy heavy, thankfully I have my He-Man to lug them up the stairs), we had it together in no time and put into place.  As you can see, I'm still working on filling the cubbies and making it look pretty, but progress is progress.  So far, it's serving perfectly as storage for my knitting supplies, skeins of yarn, and my pretty little sewing box my parents gave me for Christmas... and a photo of my favorite son.  Don't act surprised... we know parents always have favorites.

To the left of the room, I have a work table (previously used in John's office at Overlook, but now is too large for his room), which I think will provide the perfect work surface for projects galore.  I can almost see all the window coverings, pillow cases, and cushion covers I'll be making now... I think I'll need some additional task lighting, but hey, this is just Part 1.

For now, I just use cat slave labor.  Those tiny paws just move so quickly.

I'm kicking around the idea of painting the room some shade of pink to really girl it up, but in the interest of not having to paint again in a few years should John get his heir, maybe I should pick something a little more neutral.  It's been 17 years since I had a pink room, though, and I must say, I kinda feel like partying like it's 1994...

And for now, I share the room with Dexter (who could ask for a better roommate?  don't do it, it would be too greedy) and a load of boxes, but we're working our way through those, as well.  Knowing myself and my laziness, I'm sure by the time I get the room set up, Baby Bedtelyon will come and snatch it all away, but for now, I have my own little room in my own little house.  Now, if I can just convince John to let me install a wine fridge up there, I'll be all set...

Does 50 bottles say "connoisseur" or "I have a problem"?...