Finally pillowfied

Many moons ago I did an embroidery project for the Iron Craft challenge You Are Here, about maps: a topographical map of lips. I didn’t cut the fabric because I had a vision of a pillow, so I folded it up and it lived in various locations for the last two and a half years. Now it looks like this:

bolster main

A bolster pillow! As well as my first invisible zipper. It’s not so invisible because of the pull on the fabric (or maybe because I don’t own an invisible zipper foot), but it’s still better looking than a standard zipper would be.

Sneaking a look inside you’ll find this:

bolster open 1 bolster open 2

A roll of quilt batting, two kinds, that had been sitting on a high closet shelf for nearly as long as the embroidery had been waiting to be made into something. I interleaved the types (the one I had less of, which is completely hidden, was puffier than what you can see), rolled them up, and used an upholstery needle to stitch the edge lightly so it stays put. That made inserting it into the pillowcase easier and means the case can be removed for cleaning if necessary.

The pillow is a bit more than 20 inches long and a bit less than 6 inches across. It will be good for lumbar support or for my husband to put under his knees when he’s napping on his back.

bolster close-up

This was a nice stashbuster! There’s leftover fabric in my fabric stash, but I used about half of the remnant for this, and all of the two pieces of batting. I had to buy a pack of 7 specialty needles to get an upholstery needle, but I’ll have sails to mend soon, right?

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