Imperfectly Beautiful Pillow

I teased you with fringe. I teased you with fabric. Okay, enough suspense. Here's what I did with that fabric and fringe.

First, let me remind you where this fabric came from. If you remember in this post I told you that the fabric was from my old mattress that had been in my Grandparents' house. When I say old, I mean relatively speaking. I mean, it's as old as I am. In mattress years, that's ancient. In human years, not so much. But I digress. So I had this fabric from 1970 and I needed to find some fringe to match it. I thought I was going to have to go with a solid color, but a trip to Hobby Lobby changed my mind quickly. I couldn't believe how well this stuff matched my fabric. I was doing silent (okay, maybe not completely silent) "Woo Hoo!'s" down the aisles of the store. See how pretty this fringe is against that fabric? Anyway, I brought it home and started to work. Now, I thought about hot gluing everything together but I have two dogs who eat everything, so I thought if I didn't want my pillow eaten up for the hot glue hors d'oeuvre I'd better break out the old sewing machine for this project.

I have a love-hate relationship with my sewing machine. See, my college major was Home-Economics with an emphasis in Interior Design. Which means I sewed a lot for four years. You'd think I could remember some of it. Well, some of it I do. Most of it I don't. A lot of good my well-paid-for education did me. I think I fell out of love with it because I had a task-master for a teacher. Dr. Diamond (not her real name...I will spare her good name here...the ones who graduated with me or close to me know exactly who I'm talking about) was very strict on us Home Ec. majors. She would stand over me and my sewing machine and tell me, "That's not good enough, do it again!" I remember one jacket that was my pride and joy, a beautiful, deep amethyst cropped wool jacket that I thought I had sewn exceptionally well. Dr. Diamond had been gone while I finished it, and I had it hanging in her room for her inspection when she returned. Fully expecting an A, I walked in and she began her tirade about how this seam was wrong, and this corner was crooked, and blah, blah, blah. I was devastated. She gave me a B. But you know what? I wore that jacket with pride, because I had made it with my own two hands. It still hangs in my closet to remind me of what I am able to accomplish, but it also reminds me of how I was hardly ever good enough to earn Dr. Diamond's praise.

Fast forward to a few days ago. I was nervous to try sewing again, thinking I wouldn't do it "right." But I stuffed the fear down enough to start on my pillow, hoping I would remember enough to get by. I started by pinning the fringe on one side of the fabric, then sewing it on. I can't tell you how many times I stuck myself with those pins! Then I began to sew both pieces of fabric together. Because the fringe made one piece very bulky, it was extremely hard to keep the line straight. I kept hearing Dr. Diamond over my shoulder..."That's not good enough! That seam is so crooked! Tear it out and do it over!" And then I would hear The Nester's sweet voice (or what I imagine her voice to sound like) saying "It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful!" And that's what kept me from ripping it out and giving up. I finished it with a little hole in the side to squeeze the pillow form through, then hand stitched it shut. It was a little loose (meaning I had a little more room than I needed for the pillow form), but both my Sweet Husband and I thought it turned out beautiful.It's not perfect, by any means. But I just realized that no one else in the world has one like it and no one ever will. Even when I make one for my sister it will not be exactly like this one. It's a unique memento to remind me of time spent at my Grandparents' house.Now it sits in my house. I think it fits just fine.