Sweater Pillow

So what do you do with a sweater with a HUGE hole in the elbow after it came out of the wash machine?

I was inspired by a pillow Brenda and I found in Door County at a home furnishings store.

I bought a rectangle pillow at a thrift store for my pillow form.  However when I cut the pillow fabric inside I found stuffing and not a form. So I made my own form out of muslim and the pillow stuffing.  I cut off the top of the sweater and sewed the seams at the top and bottom.

 Voila!

 

I made this right before Christmas. I was so proud of myself for finally completing a project I had been dreaming of for 5 months and had to share my excitement with Brenda. Meanwhile two weeks earlier she had made her own sweater pillow and gave it to me for Christmas.
 

She knitted her own!  How can I compete with that.  Mine looks so inferior to hers.  These two pillows CANNOT be in the same room.  Mine looks out of place next to hers.

 

Felt Food

I'm a little envious of Brenda's pint-sized friends.  Many of her friends have kids about 3 years and younger.  She has started to collect toys to entertain them and make her house more kid friendly.  Her favorite little friend Maren says "Toys, toys" as soon as she gets in the door at Brenda's house.  Maren also LOVES donuts (do you blame her?).

Ever since Brenda and I joined Pinterest in December, we have been HOOKED on it. If you aren't on it, get on it (but you need an invite which you can request from me).  It is basically an online idea place.  You make boards or groupings of items other people have found or something you found on the web.  It is a great place for design ideas, DIY instructions, blog links, recipes, gifts, and crafts.

Our first "Pinspiration" project is Felt Food.  It wasn't hard to find ideas of food items to make out of felt and they look so realistic. Check out my Pinterest Board for many ideas.   We spent a weekend together so what else do we do...we work on projects.  We found that it doesn't cost much to make felt food but it can get time consuming to make it.  You can buy 12"x12" squares of felt at places like Walmart, Michaels, JoAnn's or Hobby Lobby (yes, we went to all four!).  Walmart, JoAnn's and Hobby Lobby also had felt on 72" wide bolts.  JoAnn's had the best selection and it was 40% off ($3/yd)!!!  You are going to need a variety of thread colors.  I have bought some travel or mending kits that have a variety of thread colors which works great when you need just a little bit.  If you need to spin a bobbin, go with a spool.

Here is our sandwich set complete with bread, bologna, cheese (two kinds-we do live in Wisconsin), tomato, lettuce and chips.

Our other set is breakfast food.  Eggs, bacon, waffles, pop tarts, and zero-calorie donuts.

We started pasta for an Italian set but got burnt out before we made the pizza to go with it.

I wish I was young again to play with this.  I guess I will have to find some little friends to play with!  In the dreams is a plan to make a play kitchen.  Here's the Pinspiration.