Last weekend, I woke up at the crack of dawn (aka 7:30am) and declared it "National Make Something Day." After pensively waiting for the fabric store to open and convincing my sweet husband that it was a really good idea for him to come with me, we were off to scoop up a bevvy of beautiful fabrics so I could get my Saturday craft fix. One and a half hours later (ahem....sorry, John!), I was ready and rarin' to get this crafternoon started. I pulled out the ol' sewing machine, prayed I'd be able to sew a straight line, and let 'er rip.

For the big mama pillow, I used yellow, teal and green ikat fabric that I bought on our honeymoon in Bali. It was approximately 99.3 degrees with 100000000% humidity in the Denpasar markets when we bought it, and John was baffled as to why the heck I was digging through piles and piles of fabric in these little shops that doubled as saunas. "TO MAKE PILLOWS!" was my snappy response each and every time he questioned my motives. Nevermind that I hadn't ever sewn a stitch in my life, was 70% sure I was going to die of heat stroke, and didn't have room in our carry-on luggage. Well, two and a half years later, I actually made that pillow. Victory! Jenny at Little Green Notebook posted a great tutorial on how to whip up these easy envelope pillows.

The little striped lumbar pillow was the more complicated one to sew since I got ambitious and wanted to put in a punchy yellow zipper (sewn in with neon pink thread....natch) since the striped fabric was a little 'blah' on its own. Susan from Freshly Picked shows us how to do this in a tutorial about sewing zippered pillows. I was thinking of doing some sort of geometric block printed design on the front of this in gold (obvi), light turquoise, coral or yellow ink. What say you, readers? Yay or nay?


Lastly, I whipped up a little pouch to contain all of the clutter that inevitably invades every corner of our house. Receipts, I'm coming for you. This is the one DIY project from the weekend that I wish I had read a tutorial for. I got kind of cocky after I made the zippered pillow and was all "I got this," and didn't sew in a lining. Durrrrrr. It's like the land of frayed threads up in there. At least the outside looks good. The ikat and stripes look really fun together, and I'm slightly obsessed with the neon pink zigzag stitch where the two fabrics come together.

What are you planning to make this weekend?