Showing posts with label guest blog posts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guest blog posts. Show all posts

Saturday, March 17, 2012

How To Sew a Pillow Cover For Beginners: A Guest Blog Post

Good morning, friends!  :-)  Happy Saturday (and St. Patrick's Day) to you!

Today, Lisha from One House One Couple is our guest blogger, and she's got a great tutorial for you all -- the perfect, easy weekend project!  Take it away, Lisha...

Hey everyone, I'm Lisha from 1house1couple. Maria was kind enough to invite me over to do a guest post here at All Things Luxurious, and I am super excited to share one of my latest home projects with you. I just did this a couple days ago so it’s fresh in my mind.


Now to forewarn you, I am not a decorator. I’m definitely more comfortable with a hammer in my hand than a sewing machine. I’m also really frugal, so I tend to purchase the bare minimum for furnishings and décor in my house. Most things that I decorate my home with I simply find somewhere, or it was given to me. But lately I’ve been getting an itch to do a little revamping and add a little more spice and color to our home. So I decided to cover our couch pillows with a fun fabric:


Old couch pillow:



Fun Fabric:


Here’s a shot up close so you can see the design:


First I measured the length of the pillow, from one seam to the other side.

Then I measured where I wanted my sewing to go on the fabric:


And I sewed it inside out, because that’s how you sew things, of course:


I’ve only used a sewing machine like 3 times in my life. I know. Can you believe it? But it’s true. And my friend was here to help me thread it and get it all ready for me, so I was able to start it and I was pretty successful for the first few lines of sewing. But I did get a bunch of up thread at one point:


But I just turned the corner and just kept going anyway, and it worked out okay:


I don’t have any pictures of the big fiasco I had in my pillow cover sewing adventure. This was after I
took the bobbin out to check to see if I was getting low on thread in the bobbin, which I wasn’t, so I put
it back in. When I continued sewing the upper thread kept breaking. I tried to call my friend, but she was busy at work, and I called my husband (the seamster in our marriage) and we tried to troubleshoot it for a while, with no luck. So I went online to see if there were any video tutorials for setting up a sewing machine. And it turns out, I didn’t know that the bobbin had to click and set. I was just placing it in the bobbin area without pushing it in and making sure it clicked. Boy, do I feel lame.

So once that was properly set I finished with flying colors. I sewed three sides (plus a tiny bit by the
corners on the 4th side) and then I put it around the pillow to make sure it was going to fit:




It fit perfectly, so I went back to the sewing machine to sew the 4th side and I realized that I’m too
lazy, so I simply covered the pillow and tucked in the extra fabric! Walla! No one will ever know the
difference!


Plus, if I ever wanted to wash the cover it would be easy to take it off the pillow, wash it, and put it back on.

Here’s a close up of the finished product:


I’m pretty proud of myself because my pillows turned out quite well. I covered two pillows with that
fabric. My husband came home and inspected my work and he said I did a good job. Yay me!

So, now that I know how the bobbin works I won’t be so afraid to sew next time. What do you think of
the pillows? The pretty fabric really makes the room feel more fun and less drab than it did before.

I want to thank Maria for allowing me to steal her blog for the day. You all can come and visit us any time at 1house1couple!

***
Love this tutorial, thanks so much for sharing with us today, Lisha!  Now head on over to her blog and check it out!  :-)  Have a safe day and evening, lovies!   I will catch you back here tomorrow.  ;-)

love, maria

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Future Plans: Guest Blog Posts

Good morning, friends!  And happy Saturday to you.  :-)

How did you all sleep?  I wasn't very relaxed last night when I tried to hit the hay, but I eventually drifted off into dreamland and even managed to sleep in this AM!  Not a usual thing for me, I might add!  I was busy last night reading two amazing books that I have bought within the past month: Decorate and Design*Sponge At Home.  Both of these books are filled with amazing photography and brilliant lessons to be learned about decorating and furnishing your home -- so much more than a coffee table book.  I would recommend both without question!

Starting next Saturday, we are going to be beginning a new weekend event where I have a guest blogger posting for me.  The topics will range across anything home and garden related, and I think that'll give the blog a nice, easy, and relaxed feel while we all lounge around on our weekends.  :-)  Next week I will be featuring Lisha and Kyle Yost from One House One Couple.  This awesome duo also happens to be sponsoring my blog for the month of March, and All Things Luxurious is sponsoring them, too!  :-)  We're just one big, happy family -- lol.

1house1couple


I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day.  I will be posting once more this morning, and then it will be off to the marvelous world of cleaning and organizing for me -- my apartment desperately needs the attention!

love, maria