the great pillow sham

I went to this strange warehouse sale a few years ago…in a classic New Jersey style of strange…a warehouse down the road a bit was going out of business and selling all manner of sheets and other fabric items.  I went in determined to find Great! Fantastic! Cheap! things to repurpose for quilts and other things.  well it was mostly a bust and in my desperation to have the sale be everything I wanted it to be I purchased two really not-cute pillow shams.  they only seemed cute because I had on my ‘desperation blinders’ and they were surrounded by so many unappealing items.  well, sadly, we have been using them ever since.

but no more!  desperation blinders are off! I finally made replacements and I have to say I don’t know what took me so long.  I used the lotta jansdotter choma fabric from her current line (she has another amazing group of fabrics coming out soon, bella.  they look like they are going to be great.)

I really like this fabric and sometimes when I really like a  fabric it makes me reluctant to use it, which sounds contradictory.  it’s just that I get kind of tangled up in the feeling that whatever I make needs to be amazing and perfect because the fabric is so awesome.  and that kind of pressure is too much so I back off and use a fabric I don’t like as much instead.  it’s a good thing I just wrote that down because it’s helping me realizing how super stupid this approach is!

{man, I am battling demons all over the place with this project.}

to make these pillow shams I sandwiched quilt batting in between this fabric and a backing fabric.  then, I sewed simple straight lines, with white thread in-between the yellow and grey tones.  for the back I made an envelope closure and sewed the two pieces together.

the fabric is so dramatic (that is another reason I had a hard time figuring what to do with it) but it’s drama is a great accent to our duvet.  they have honestly brightened up the whole room. even my husband who is normally VERY against the whole extra-pillows-on-the-bed thing was impressed with how nicely they bring the bedroom together.

now my goal is to spend more than six hours a day resting next to them.