scarf pillows

Last summer I saw a blog post (I can't find the exact link, sorry) where the author had framed several beautiful vintage scarves around her house. They brought so much color and whimsy into her space and I loved it. Jed and I took a little trip to some of the second-hand stores in town and found two scarves that I loved--a blue, yellow and orange one and a green, yellow and pink one--for a dollar each. Since my budget and wall space don't really allow for framing, I decided to make pillows instead. I know, you're not surprised, since I am a pillow addict.

Since the scarves were a polyester-silk blend, I was worried that my fiberfill would poke through the fabric, so I decided to back the scarf with muslin. And then I worried that the scarf and the muslin would shift and not lay flat together. So I decided to embroider some of the flowers on the scarves so that the muslin wouldn't shift. And now you know why it took me 8 months to complete a simple project!

One of the scarves prior to being made into a pillow.

Here's the back, so you can see all the embroidery.

A nice little close-up

Front embroidery

Even though it took a long time, I had so much fun embroidering the different flowers. My scarves aren't fancy at all--they're probably just a screen print--but they still feel like a work of art when you examine all the colors in such detail.

The finished product!

I forgot to take pictures of the green/yellow/pink pillow before I finished it into a pillow, so you can't see all the embroidery from the back.





I love how this pillow looks like a watercolor--the colors gently blend together so beautifully.

I think my favorite thing about this pillow is that big pink peony in the corner. I chose not to embroider around it because the lines were so soft that I felt like embroidering it would spoil that effect.

And here they are together!

For the backs, I chose to use a small check polyester gingham from the $2 bin at WalMart. I love gingham so much. It feels so relaxed and playful and kind of makes these pillows not seem too serious.

Jed loves to wrassle these huge pillows. I am sort of in a quandary about this. I want everything that I sew to be useful and fun in our house, and yet I feel that I have put so much work into this particular project that I want them to stay nice. Some of our other pillows have chocolate-blueberry-snot stains rubbed into them and I'd rather not have that happen this time around. So far our compromise has been that the big pillows can be wrassled first thing after getting our faces washed and teeth brushed in the morning, or at night after bath time. That way we're mostly clean.

Jed found me taking pictures of the pillows and wanted to get in on the action. I told him to give me a big smile and this is what I got.

In a way I am sad to be done with these pillows. I always love having an embroidery project going. But they look so great--and are SO comfortable--that I don't regret it that much at all!