In the Fall of 2009 I needed a birthday gift. The birthday girl is a vegetarian, and I remembered seeing this project stitched up, which is based on an Urban Threads pattern.
Inspired, I drew up my own design, which also included the recipient’s favorite animal, the giraffe.
At the time I posted about a mystery project, this one, but I wasn’t able to show you the finished piece because I lost the photos when my hard drive crashed. I asked the pillow’s owner to bring it home for Christmas so I could take new photos, so here it is now.
The pillow is cut out of an old sheet (I’ve been using that old sheet for so many things!) and embroidered like crazy with outline stitch, satin stitch, and a split stitch that was more or less worked in the round for the larger body parts. I stuffed it with a pillow form I wasn’t using. I think it was a big hit.
Now, I happen to know another vegetarian, who just so happens to live in the same apartment as the first vegetarian, so when Christmas came around I thought it might be nice to make a matching pillow. I stayed true to the original dinosaur idea but drew my own version.
(By the way, I am not at all pleased with the photos, despite quite a few tries on different days. You’ll have this sometimes, I guess.)
I made this one a little differently by doing a reverse applique on an old T-shirt that I cut up to make the outside of the pillow. Then I went back and added a few hand-embroidered details. The beauty of the T-shirt fabric is that it won’t fray but will instead just curl up nicely over time.
This one gave me some trouble when I discovered a stain on the back of the pillow. I hadn’t noticed it when I was cutting up the T-shirt, so I’d already put the project together. I didn’t want to toss the whole back of the pillow, so instead I pieced together some scraps of the applique fabric and did another reverse applique on the back of the pillow. Problem solved!
I am in love with how easy it is to reverse applique with a stretch knit like this and with how effective the finished project is. I have a million ideas for other ways I can use it. Plus, what’s not to love about a project made with repurposed materials that suits the receiver so well?
The pillows are adorable! So well executed, too.
And I giggled a bit at how you phrased “happen to know another vegetarian.” In my brain, it started a Python-esque sketch in my head. Very fun!
written on January 6th, 2010, at 10:12 amWow – amazing work! Love them both :)
written on January 6th, 2010, at 11:38 amThose are great, Gretchen!
That is an AMAZING amount of fill stitching. How many strands of floss did you use for the split stitching that you did as fill stitching?
I have such a hate relationship with t-shirt fabric because of how difficult it is to embroider on, but I can see that it’d be fantastic for reverse applique because of the no-fraying perk. I really love that pillow and how you worked some embroidery into it.
written on January 6th, 2010, at 5:28 pmGlenda, I’m not sure, but I think I used four strands of floss for the split stitching.
I’ve never tried to embroider on the T-shirt fabric, but I’ve heard it can be tricky. For this pillow I had the benefit of the stretch fabric for the applique bit but kept the embroidery to the cotton. No hassle! ;)
written on January 6th, 2010, at 11:30 pmBeautiful! I especially love the dinosaur!
written on January 7th, 2010, at 4:55 amAli
x
Love them both, super cute! great way to problem solve too. It’s so ironic the fabric you chose for the dinosaur. I made a t- shirt last summer with appliqued dinos on it, made with vintage flower fabric that is sooo similar. Except mine was a dark green, other than that it looks exactly the same. Great minds think alike, no? Happy weekend :)
written on January 8th, 2010, at 2:27 pm