Homemaking Pillow!

Goodness, I am having a wicked chocolate craving right now.  Flipping through my Google Reader is just torture, since everybody is going full blast with the Valentines treats.  There were picture of chocolate-on chocolate donuts, and chocolate drenched cookies, and chocolate goodies everywhere... Evil evil evil, and me trying not to eat sweets!  Come on, people!  Trying to LOSE the muffin top here, not add to it!  Gotta keep fitting into my size 1 Cruel Girl jeans! (which, by the way, I only fit into right now because I DECIDE I can fit into them. I never said it was attractive.  And before you gripe at me for saying "size 1" and not "size 14", I can at least say that this is the only brand in which I wear a 1!)

Anywho, I got busy yesterday.  Washed and dried and draped the couches in the canvas I'd gotten for them.  It's a HUGE improvement.  Though at some point I'll need to get a third canvas and form the arms and some pleated skirts, to trick the unsuspecting into believing that my couches are not hideous.

 

And suddenly the matching pillows don't look quite so bad.

Ok, yes, I know, but I did say "quite."  I never said "nice".

 

I thought it was interesting that the Home Depot canvases were whiter than the Lowes ones, which I've been using for the other projects.  But still washed up to be nice and soft!

Also, I tackled that pillow that I've been desperately trying to come up with.  I visited the last fabric store available, and it had even less cooperative selection than the others.  So I gave in, and decided to FORCE the fabric to bend to my will.  

I basically copied the shape of the case that was already on the body pillow...

Dying the canvas.  You're looking at a test strip.

 

Drying in the sun.

 After this, there was a period of sewing it altogether into the pillowcase, and then machine washing it (cold/cold). I didn't wash it BEFORE I sewed, because I figured the edges would shred WAY too badly, which they were already trying to do in the dye bath.

And then I painted stripes in an acrylic paint that I had lying around (Liquitex, "Red Oxide", about 13 years old and stretched with water). Maybe at some point I'll add the finer lines that made the original look that much more awesome, but I'm a little unsure of my straight-skinny-line-making skills.  So I stopped here!

That's my copy of Vanity Fair sneaking into the pictures.  I just finished it today, and I'm now a little horrified at how the movie altered the story to make Becky LIKEABLE!  Let me make it clear, if you've not read the book but seen the movie, that she is quite definitely a villain, with only one redeeming action in the whole book, which she then stomps on, or rather, dances on top of merrily with spike-treaded boots.

Anyhow, just my ranting.  I hate movies that take ridiculous liberties with plot (*coughcough* Dawn Treader *coughcough* Golden Compass *coughcough*).