Elin&Jim

I have been experimenting with applique, in the last few days. It is really cute and makes the most simple project interesting and fun. Two of the most successful projects finished are these two personalized pillows. I have made them for friends' kids with birthdays coming up: Elin and Jim.

They both turn one in March and and they both moved/will move to a new house, so what better present than something for their new bedroom? I think they turned out really good and even the applique borders look acceptable (please don't look too closely!).

For Elin's pillow, I mixed and matched four different cotton fabrics to create the letters and patchwork frame. The back is off white cotton. For Jim's, I used Alexander Henry's Zoo in blue to create the frame and a simple dark blue checkered cotton on the name. The back is heavy weight green cotton. I used 100% polyester as filling.

Now the challenge for future similar projects (and there will be tons of them as these are so much fun to make) is to make them environment friendly. The fabrics are the easy part, I will be able to use scraps, remnants and repurposed materials. The filling, however, will be trickier - using old pillows for kids and babies is out of the question, so I will have to look into organic or recycled fillings which is more difficult and more expensive to source. I have found some options at Hart's Fabric but finding closer to home will not be as easy!